Shedding Light on the Effects of Moderate Acute Exercise on Working Memory Performance in Healthy Older Adults: An fNIRS Study.

Katharina Stute,Claudia Voelcker-Rehage,Robert Stojan,Nicole Hudl

doi:10.3390/brainsci10110813

Abstract

Numerous studies have reported the beneficial effects of acute exercise on executive functions. Less is known, however, about the effects of exercise on working memory as one subcomponent of executive functions and about its effects on older adults. We investigated the effects of acute moderate-intensity exercise on working memory performance, the respective cortical hemodynamic activation patterns, and the development and persistence of such effects in healthy older adults. Forty-four participants (M: 69.18 years ± 3.92; 21 females) performed a letter 2-back task before and at three time points after (post 15 min, post 30 min, and post 45 min) either listening to an audiobook or exercising (15 min; 50% VO2-peak). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to assess cortical hemodynamic activation and brain-behavior correlations in the fronto-parietal working memory network. Overall, we found no group differences for working memory performance. However, only within the experimental group, 2-back performance was enhanced 15 min and 45 min post-exercise. Furthermore, 15 min post-exercise frontal activation predicted working memory performance, regardless of group. In sum, our results indicate slight beneficial effects of acute moderate-intensity exercise on working memory performance in healthy older adults. Findings are discussed in light of the cognitive aging process and moderators affecting the exercise-cognition relationship.

Highlights

Numerous studies in the field of sport and exercise sciences have focused on the human aging process and examined the relationship between chronic exercise and cognition from a neuroscientific perspective [1,2]
4, working memory performance improved both groups from time point pre to postAs15shown min atinwhich differences between the twoin groups were most pronounced in pre to post min at which performance differences between the two groups were most pronounced favor of the experimental group (EG)
This is evidenced by a higher rate-correct score (RCS), indicating better overall performance on the 2-back favor of the EG

Summary

Introduction

Numerous studies in the field of sport and exercise sciences have focused on the human aging process and examined the relationship between chronic exercise and cognition from a neuroscientific perspective [1,2]. Researchers have become increasingly interested in how and to what extent a single bout of exercise ( referred to as acute exercise) affects cognitive performance in executive control tasks. Meta-analytic evidence suggests that acute exercise might be beneficial for older adults [6,7], probably due to compromised cognitive reserve and frontal lobe functioning and they. Brain Sci. 2020, 10, 813 have greater capacity for improvement in response to exercise compared to young adults [8]. One executive function sensitive to age-related decline is working memory [11,12,13]. Working memory performance decreases with age due to neural changes of the underlying brain networks [14,15]

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