Experimental Effects of Acute Exercise on Iconic Memory, Short-Term Episodic, and Long-Term Episodic Memory.

Danielle Yanes,Paul Loprinzi

doi:10.3390/jcm7060146

Abstract

The present experiment evaluated the effects of acute exercise on iconic memory and short- and long-term episodic memory. A two-arm, parallel-group randomized experiment was employed (n = 20 per group; Mage = 21 year). The experimental group engaged in an acute bout of moderate-intensity treadmill exercise for 15 min, while the control group engaged in a seated, time-matched computer task. Afterwards, the participants engaged in a paragraph-level episodic memory task (20 min delay and 24 h delay recall) as well as an iconic memory task, which involved 10 trials (at various speeds from 100 ms to 800 ms) of recalling letters from a 3 × 3 array matrix. For iconic memory, there was a significant main effect for time (F = 42.9, p < 0.001, η2p = 0.53) and a trend towards a group × time interaction (F = 2.90, p = 0.09, η2p = 0.07), but no main effect for group (F = 0.82, p = 0.37, η2p = 0.02). The experimental group had higher episodic memory scores at both the baseline (19.22 vs. 17.20) and follow-up (18.15 vs. 15.77), but these results were not statistically significant. These findings provide some suggestive evidence hinting towards an iconic memory and episodic benefit from acute exercise engagement.

Highlights

Human memory is complex and can be categorized into multiple memory systems including sensory memory, working memory, prospective memory and short- and long-term memory [1,2]
Among the young adult population, most of the research examining the effects of acute exercise on episodic memory function have focused on short-term memory, with little research focusing on longer-term memory [15]
The enhancement of memory may help to facilitate future exercise behavior and help to attenuate the decline in memory function [53,54]. Extending this emerging exercise neurobiology field, the present experiment evaluated whether acute moderate-intensity exercise was associated with iconic and episodic memory function

Summary

Introduction

Human memory is complex and can be categorized into multiple memory systems including sensory memory (very short term memory recall from various senses such as visual or auditory), working memory (recall of information while concurrently processing other information), prospective memory (remembering to perform a task in the future) and short- and long-term memory [1,2]. With the latter memory systems, declarative memory involves the recall of past events/episodes (episodic memory) or facts (semantic memory), whereas implicit or procedural memory involves memories that are not consciously encoded. Postulated mechanisms include, for example, (1) exercise enhancing neuronal excitability; (2) exercise enhancing attentional resource allocation to facilitate memory encoding; (3) exercise upregulating AMPA receptor levels, opening NMDA channels, and increasing EPSP (excitatory post-synaptic potentials) in the hippocampus; (4) exercise priming neurons to be encoded in the memory trace by increasing CREB transcription; (5) BDNF (brain-derived neurotropic factor) expression from exercise; and (6) exercise enhancing dendritic spine growth [1]

Methods

Results

Conclusion