Dancing Improves Emotional Regulation in Women With Methamphetamine Use Disorder But Use of a Cycle Ergometer Does Not.

Qian Tao,Chenping Zhang,Xiawen Li

doi:10.3389/fnins.2021.629061

Abstract

BackgroundEmotional regulation is crucial to people who receive a diagnosis of methamphetamine (MA) use disorder. Although evidence that exercise improves emotional regulation is robust, little is known about whether exercise will improve emotional processing in women with MA use disorder.MethodsIn the present study, 36 women with MA use disorder aged 20 to 34 years and residing in the Drug Rehabilitation Bureau of Mogan Mountain in Zhejiang province were assigned to 1 of 2 exercise intervention groups-dancing or stationary cycling. Both types of exercise were performed at 65–75% of the maximum heart rate for 30 min. Immediately before and after the exercise bout, the participants were asked to score their feelings using a nine-point Likert scale as they viewed emotionally negative, positive, or neutral images in blocks of 20 images each, for a total of 60 images. Concurrent with viewing the images and self-rating their emotions, the women also underwent functional near-infrared spectroscopy to assess changes in brain activity.ResultsThere were no significant differences in the demographic or MA use characteristics assessed for the women between the two exercise groups. We found main effect of image valence (F2,33 = 69.61, p < 0.01), significant interaction effect of time and image valence was found (F2,33 = 4.27, p < 0.05) and trend increase in the self-rated emotional scale score for viewing negative images in both groups after 30-min exercise intervention, and the dancing group presented more significant trends than cycling group. In addition, activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of dancers, but not of cyclists, while viewing negative images was significantly lower after vs. before dancing (F2,33 = 5.43, p < 0.05). This result suggested that 30 min of dancing decreased neural activity in women with MA use disorder while they viewed negative images specifically in a brain region known to guide the selection of appropriate behaviors, and to shift attention.Taken together, the findings of this study suggest that for women with MA abuse disorder, 30 min of dancing, rather than of stationary cycling, may ameliorate negative emotional reactions by decreasing attention to negative stimuli.

Highlights

Compared to amphetamine, methamphetamine (MA) has more adverse effects on both the central nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system (Davidson et al, 2001)
Semple et al (2005) reported that approximately 40% of their participants who were MA users had moderate to severe depression, and greater intensity of MA use was correlated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in their study, even after controlling for demographic factors
Our results indicated that 30 min of dancing had the trend in increasing participants’ self-rating of their feelings and decreased the neural activation associated with channel two when the participants viewed negative images

Summary

Introduction

Methamphetamine (MA) has more adverse effects on both the central nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system (Davidson et al, 2001). Numerous study results have suggested that people who have emotional issues have higher risk for the use of drugs, including MA. One study found that the lifetime risk of drug abuse or dependence was 6.19 times more likely for individuals with vs without emotional issues (Grant, 1995). Other studies have found that MA users have a higher proportion of emotional disorders than non-users. Semple et al (2005) reported that approximately 40% of their participants who were MA users had moderate to severe depression, and greater intensity of MA use was correlated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in their study, even after controlling for demographic factors. Improving the emotional state of MA users will help prevent drug relapse. Emotional regulation is crucial to people who receive a diagnosis of methamphetamine (MA) use disorder. Evidence that exercise improves emotional regulation is robust, little is known about whether exercise will improve emotional processing in women with MA use disorder

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