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Effects of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Cognition and Constructs of Decision-Making in Adults With and Without Hypertension.

ABSTRACT: Hypertension accelerates brain aging, resulting in cognitive dysfunction with advancing age. Exercise is widely recommended for adults with hypertension to attenuate cognitive dysfunction. Whether acute exercise benefits cognitive function in this at-risk population is unknown. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of acute aerobic exercise on cognitive function in 30 middle-aged hypertensive (HTN) and 30 age, sex, and body mass index (BMI)-matched non-HTN adults (56 ± 6 years, BMI 28.2 ± 2.9 kg/m2; 32 men). Subjects underwent cognitive testing pre/post 30-min cycling (?55% peak oxygen consumption). Cognition was assessed using standard metrics of accuracy and reaction time (RT) across memory recognition, 2-back, and Flanker tasks. Behavioral data was further analyzed using drift-diffusion modeling to examine underlying components of decision-making (strength of evidence, caution, bias) and RT (non-decision time). Exercise elicited similar changes in cognitive function in both HTN and non-HTN groups (p > 0.05). Accuracy was unaltered for Flanker and 2-back tasks, while hits and false alarms increased for memory recognition post-exercise (p < 0.05). Modeling results indicated changes in memory hits/false alarms were due to significant changes in stimulus bias post-exercise. RT decreased for Flanker and memory recognition tasks and was driven by reductions in post-exercise non-decision time (p < 0.05). Our data indicate acute exercise resulted in similar, beneficial cognitive responses in both middle-age HTN and non-HTN adults, marked by unaltered task accuracy, and accelerated RT post-exercise. Additionally, drift-diffusion modeling revealed that beneficial acceleration of cognitive processing post-exercise (RT) is driven by changes in non-decision components (encoding/motor response) rather than the decision-making process itself.

SUBMITTER: Lefferts WK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6418781 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effects of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Cognition and Constructs of Decision-Making in Adults With and Without Hypertension.

Lefferts Wesley K WK DeBlois Jacob P JP White Corey N CN Heffernan Kevin S KS

Frontiers in aging neuroscience 20190308

Hypertension accelerates brain aging, resulting in cognitive dysfunction with advancing age. Exercise is widely recommended for adults with hypertension to attenuate cognitive dysfunction. Whether acute exercise benefits cognitive function in this at-risk population is unknown. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of acute aerobic exercise on cognitive function in 30 middle-aged hypertensive (HTN) and 30 age, sex, and body mass index (BMI)-matched non-HTN adults (56 ± 6 years, BM ...[more]

PMID: 30906257

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Project description:ObjectiveTo determine efficacy of aerobic exercise for cognitive function in younger healthy adults.MethodsIn a randomized, parallel-group, observer-masked, community-based clinical trial, 132 cognitively normal individuals aged 20-67 with below median aerobic capacity were randomly assigned to one of two 6-month, 4-times-weekly conditions: aerobic exercise and stretching/toning. Efficacy measures included aerobic capacity; cognitive function in several domains (executive function, episodic memory, processing speed, language, and attention), everyday function, body mass index (BMI), and cortical thickness.ResultsAerobic capacity increased significantly (β = 2.718; p = 0.003), and BMI decreased significantly (β = -0.596; p = 0.013) in the aerobic exercise but not in the stretching/toning condition. Executive function improved significantly in the aerobic exercise condition; this effect was moderated by age (β = 0.018 SD/y; p = 0.028). At age 40, the executive function measure increased by 0.228 SD (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.007-0.448), and by 0.596 SD (95% CI 0.219-0.973) at age 60. Cortical thickness increased significantly in the aerobic exercise group in a left frontal region and did not interact with age. Controlling for age and baseline performance, individuals with at least one APOE ε4 allele showed less improvement in executive function with aerobic exercise (β = 0.5129, 95% CI 0.0381-0.988; p = 0.0346).ConclusionsThis randomized clinical trial demonstrates the efficacy of aerobic exercise for cognition in adults age 20-67. The effect of aerobic exercise on executive function was more pronounced as age increased, suggesting that it may mitigate age-related declines. Increased cortical thickness suggests that aerobic exercise contributes to brain health in individuals as young as age 20.Clinicaltrialsgov identifierNCT01179958.Classification of evidenceThis study provides Class II evidence that for adults age 20-67 with below median aerobic capacity, aerobic exercise significantly improves executive function but not other measures of cognitive function.

Dataset Information

Effects of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Cognition and Constructs of Decision-Making in Adults With and Without Hypertension.

Publications

Effects of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Cognition and Constructs of Decision-Making in Adults With and Without Hypertension.

Similar Datasets

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