The Effect of Acute Exercise and Psychosocial Stress on Fine Motor Skills and Testosterone Concentration in the Saliva of High School Students

Mirko Wegner,Randy D Trumbower,Henning Budde,Johan M Koedijker

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0092953

Mirko Wegner, Randy D Trumbower + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0092953

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Abstract

Little is known about the influence of different stressors on fine motor skills, the concentration of testosterone (T), and their interaction in adolescents. Therefore, 62 high school students aged 14–15 years were randomly assigned to two experimental groups (exercise, psychosocial stress) and a control group. Exercise stress was induced at 65–75% of the maximum heart rate by running for 15 minutes (n = 24). Psychosocial stress was generated by an intelligence test (HAWIK-IV), which was uncontrollable and characterized by social-evaluative-threat to the students (n = 21). The control group followed was part of a regular school lesson with the same duration (n = 28). Saliva was collected after a normal school lesson (pre-test) as well as after the intervention/control period (post-test) and was analyzed for testosterone. Fine motor skills were assessed pre- and post-intervention using a manual dexterity test (Flower Trail) from the Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2. A repeated measure ANCOVA including gender as a covariate revealed a significant group by test interaction, indicating an increase in manual dexterity only for the psychosocial stress group. Correlation analysis of all students shows that the change of testosterone from pre- to post-test was directly linked (r = −.31, p = .01) to the changes in manual dexterity performance. Participants showing high increases in testosterone from pre- to post-test made fewer mistakes in the fine motor skills task. Findings suggest that manual dexterity increases when psychosocial stress is induced and that improvement of manual dexterity performance corresponds with the increase of testosterone.

Highlights

There is little relevant research on the effects of different stressors, such as exercise or psychosocial stress, on motor skills [1]
At a descriptive level it can be seen that boys show higher pre- and post-stress values for testosterone as well as manual dexterity scores
The aim of the present study was to investigate how psychosocial and physiological stress affect manual motor performance and whether the different responses are related to different kinetics in the HPG axis expressed through testosterone

Summary

Introduction

There is little relevant research on the effects of different stressors, such as exercise or psychosocial stress, on motor skills [1]. Effects differ regarding the characteristics of the stress intervention (i.e., intensity, duration, and type) and the motor test utilized (e.g., fine or gross motor performance and the time of administration). McMorris et al [8] investigated simple reaction time performances at rest and following cycle ergometry at moderate (70%) and high (100%) percentages of maximal power output and reported that moderate-intensity exercise yielded improvements in reaction times while reaction times increased after heavy exercise. There is still a lack of research on the underlying mechanisms of the effects of exercise on fine motor skills, such as the possible influence of neurobiological mediators

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