Exercise Neuroscience Research Articles

A decade of progress in sports and exercise neuroscience from 2012 to 2022: A review and perspectives

A decade of progress in sports and exercise neuroscience from 2012 to 2022: A review and perspectives

Exercise Modifies the Brain Metabolic Response to Chronic Cocaine Exposure Inhibiting the Stria Terminalis.

It is well known that exercise promotes health and wellness, both mentally and physiologically. It has been shown to play a protective role in many diseases, including cardiovascular, neurological, and psychiatric diseases. The present study examined the effects of aerobic exercise on brain glucose metabolic activity in response to chronic cocaine exposure in female Lewis rats. Rats were divided into exercise and sedentary groups. Exercised rats underwent treadmill running for six weeks and were compared to the sedentary rats. Using positron emission tomography (PET) and [18F]-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), metabolic changes in distinct brain regions were observed when comparing cocaine-exposed exercised rats to cocaine-exposed sedentary rats. This included activation of the secondary visual cortex and inhibition in the cerebellum, stria terminalis, thalamus, caudate putamen, and primary somatosensory cortex. The functional network of this brain circuit is involved in sensory processing, fear and stress responses, reward/addiction, and movement. These results show that chronic exercise can alter the brain metabolic response to cocaine treatment in regions associated with emotion, behavior, and the brain reward cascade. This supports previous findings of the potential for aerobic exercise to alter the brain's response to drugs of abuse, providing targets for future investigation. These results can provide insights into the fields of exercise neuroscience, psychiatry, and addiction research.

Exercise-brain interaction of neuroplasticity: empirical evidence in the rodent adaptation.

Exercise is gradually being recognized as an essential component of brain plasticity at the molecular, functional, and structural changes levels. What are the causes of the observed exercise reimbursements in neuroscience? Several types of exercises have been studied in various doses in neurological, physiological, psychological, and biochemical experiments. More clarity is required to reveal exercise-brain interactions such as optimal exercise condition variables and neuroplasticity. This review briefly highlights the empirical evidence of the positive effects neuroprotective activity on neuroscientific advancement. The key areas are as follows: (a) stress exercise model using rodents, (b) hippocampal activation and plasticity with exercise, (c) glycogen metabolism in the brain, and (d) adaptation as a high-intensity interval training model in animals involved in exercise-induced brain plasticity. Overall, exercise-induced molecular, functional, and structural changes in the neuronal system may affect rodents' performance. This study emphasizes the significance of understanding exercise neuroscience and makes recommendations for future research.

Ecological validity in exercise neuroscience research: A systematic investigation.

The contribution of cortical processes to adaptive motor behaviour is of great interest in the field of exercise neuroscience. Next to established criteria of objectivity, reliability and validity, ecological validity refers to the concerns of whether measurements and behaviour in research settings are representative of the real world. Because exercise neuroscience investigations using mobile electroencephalography are oftentimes conducted in laboratory settings under controlled environments, methodological approaches may interfere with the idea of ecological validity. This review utilizes an original ecological validity tool to assess the degree of ecological validity in current exercise neuroscience research. A systematic literature search was conducted to identify articles investigating cortical dynamics during goal-directed sports movement. To assess ecological validity, five elements (environment, stimulus, response, body and mind) were assessed on a continuum of artificiality-naturality and simplicity-complexity. Forty-seven studies were included in the present review. Results indicate lowest average ratings for the element of environment. The elements stimulus, body and mind had mediocre ratings, and the element of response had the highest overall ratings. In terms of the type of sport, studies that assessed closed-skill indoor sports had the highest ratings, whereas closed-skill outdoor sports had the lowest overall rating. Our findings identify specific elements that are lacking in ecological validity and areas of improvement in current exercise neuroscience literature. Future studies may potentially increase ecological validity by moving from reductionist, artificial environments towards complex, natural environments and incorporating real-world sport elements such as adaptive responses and competition.

Effects of combining manual therapy, neck muscle exercises, and therapeutic pain neuroscience education in patients with migraine: a study protocol for a randomized clinical trial

BackgroundNon-pharmacological approaches for the management of migraine exhibit low to moderate effectiveness due to a lack of high-quality randomized clinical trials. In fact, previous studies applied isolated techniques, which were not representative of common clinical practice. A multimodal approach for migraine may benefit these patients more than isolated approaches. This randomized clinical trial aims to determine the effectiveness of a multimodal protocol combining manual therapy, exercise, and therapeutic pain neuroscience education versus the application of manual therapy or pain neuroscience education alone in patients with migraine.MethodsThis clinical trial will include 75 individuals of both sexes, aged between 18 and 55 years, with migraine. Participants will be randomized into three groups: the therapeutic pain neuroscience education (TPNE; n = 25) group, the manual therapy (MT; n = 25) group, and the multimodal (MM; n = 25) group. The TPNE group will receive one orientation session on migraine and pain self-management, and recommendations for daily active stretching and walking, with subsequent therapist monitoring. The MT group will receive manual therapies targeting musculoskeletal disorders of the cervical spine. The MM group will receive manual therapies targeting musculoskeletal disorders of the cervical spine, active neck exercises, and therapeutic pain neuroscience education. The treatment period will last 12 weeks. The primary outcome will be the headache impact, measured using the Headache Impact Test (HIT-6). Secondary outcomes will include migraine frequency and intensity, cervical mobility and strength parameters, neck pain-related disability, kinesiophobia, cutaneous allodynia, pain-related catastrophizing, quality of life, and self-perception of change. All outcomes will be evaluated at the fourth, eighth, and twelfth weeks of the treatment period. Primary and secondary clinical outcomes, such as headache impact, frequency, and intensity, will also be evaluated at the 1-, 2-, and 4-month follow-ups.DiscussionThe results of this randomized clinical trial may provide high-quality clinical evidence of the effects of non-pharmacological treatment options for the management of migraine.Trial registrationThis study was registered under the access code RBR-7s22c75 in the Registro Brasileiro de Ensaios Clínicos (ReBEC) in December 2020.

Neuromuscular exercise and pain neuroscience education compared with pain neuroscience education alone in patients with chronic pain after primary total knee arthroplasty: study protocol for the NEPNEP randomized controlled trial

BackgroundTotal knee arthroplasty (TKA) is considered an effective treatment for pain relief and improved physical performances in end-stage knee osteoarthritis. However, several studies have reported less favorable outcomes after TKA with chronic pain rates of approximately 20%. Exercise might be an effective treatment strategy for chronic pain following TKA, but no randomized controlled trials have evaluated its effect. Therefore, the purpose of this randomized controlled trial is to investigate whether a 12-week neuromuscular exercise (NEuroMuscular EXercise training program for patients with knee or hip osteoarthritis assigned for total joint replacement; NEMEX-TJR) program combined with pain neuroscience education (PNE) provides greater pain relief and improvement in physical performances than PNE alone at 12 months follow-up in a population of patients with chronic pain after primary TKA.MethodsFor this randomized controlled superiority trial, 120 patients with moderate-to-severe chronic pain after TKA are recruited from Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark. Patients are randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to one of two interventions: (a) NEMEX-TJR twice weekly for 12 weeks combined with two sessions of PNE or (b) two sessions of PNE given over 6 weeks. Assessment is performed at baseline before intervention and at 3, 6, and 12 months after initiation of the intervention. Outcome assessors are blinded toward group allocation. The primary outcome is the change in the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score4 (KOOS4), defined as the mean score for the KOOS subscales pain, symptoms, activities of daily living, and quality of life. Secondary outcomes include all KOOS subscale scores and scores for PainDETECT, the Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire, Global Perceived Effect, the Pain Catastrophizing Scale, pain intensities, temporal summation, conditioned pain modulation, and pressure pain thresholds. Physical performances are measured with walking, stair climbing, and chair standing tests as well as tests of muscle strength and power.DiscussionThe findings will be useful in establishing effective treatment strategies for chronic pain after TKA. The randomized controlled trial involves rigorous scientific methods and uses clinically applicable interventions. The study interventions are conducted in clinical settings, thereby enhancing the possibility of future implementation of the treatments in the health care systems.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03886259. Registered 22 March 2019. Ethics committee registration: N-20180046.

Exercise and Executive Function during Follicular and Luteal Menstrual Cycle Phases.

A single bout of aerobic or resistance exercise improves executive function. We sought to determine whether menstrual cycle variations in ovarian hormone concentrations differentially influence the expression and/or magnitude of a postexercise executive benefit. Eumenorrheic female participants completed 20-min single bouts of aerobic exercise (via cycle ergometer) at a moderate intensity (i.e., 80% of estimated lactate threshold) during the early follicular and midluteal phases of their menstrual cycle. Pre- and postexercise executive function was examined via antisaccades-an executive task requiring a saccade mirror-symmetrical to a visual stimulus. Antisaccades are an ideal tool for examining postexercise executive changes because the task is mediated via the same frontoparietal networks as modified following single-bout and chronic exercise. Antisaccade reaction times decreased from the pre- to postexercise assessments by an average of 22 ms (P = 0.003), and this benefit was independent of changes in directional errors or end point accuracy (P's > 0.26). In other words, participants did not decrease their postexercise reaction times at the cost of increased planning times or execution errors. Most notably, the postexercise antisaccade benefit did not vary in magnitude across follicular or luteal phases (P = 0.33) and a two one-sided test statistic (i.e., equivalence testing) provided support for the null hypothesis (P = 0.008). A postexercise executive benefit is independent of hormonal variations in the menstrual cycle. Further, our results evince that the phase of a female participant's menstrual cycle should not be a limiting factor in determining their inclusion in exercise neuroscience research.

Trends in exercise neuroscience: raising demand for brain fitness.

Physical exercise is increasingly recognized as an important component in the neuroscience related field. What is the targeting of exercise and what accounts for the exercise’s benefits observed in neuroscience? Several types of exercise have been studied in various fields across physiological, psychological, and biochemical experiments of neuroscience. However, more clarity is needed to unveil optimal exercise conditions such as frequency, intensity, type, and time. In this review, we briefly highlight the positive effects of exercise on promoting brain function. Key areas relate to exercise neuroscience are as follow: structural level with synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis, functional level with behavioral development, and molecular level with possible mechanisms that involved in exercise-induced brain plasticity. Overall, we provide the importance of understanding the exercise neuroscience and highlight suggestions for future health research.

On task: Considerations and future directions for studies of corticospinal excitability in exercise neuroscience and related disciplines.

Over the last few decades, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has emerged as a conventional laboratory technique in human neurophysiological research. Exercise neuroscientists have used TMS to study central nervous system contributions to fatigue, training, and performance in health, injury, and disease. In such studies, corticospinal excitability is often assessed at rest or during simple isometric tasks with the implication that the results may be extrapolated to more functional and complex movement outside of the laboratory. However, the neural mechanisms that influence corticospinal excitability are both state- and task-dependent. Furthermore, there are many sites of modulation along the pathway from the motor cortex to the muscle; a fact that is somewhat obscured by the all-encompassing and poorly defined term "corticospinal excitability". Therefore, the tasks we use to assess corticospinal excitability and the conclusions that we draw from such a global measure of the motor pathway must be taken into consideration. The overall objective of this review is to highlight the task-dependent nature of corticospinal excitability and the tools used to assess modulation at cortical and spinal sites of modulation. By weighing the advantages and constraints of conventional approaches to studying corticospinal excitability, and considering some new and novel approaches, we will continue to advance our understanding of the neural control of movement during exercise.

Feasibility study design and methods for a home-based, square-stepping exercise program among older adults with multiple sclerosis: The SSE-MS project.

We propose a randomized controlled trial (RCT) examining the feasibility of square-stepping exercise (SSE) delivered as a home-based program for older adults with multiple sclerosis (MS). We will assess feasibility in the four domains of process, resources, management and scientific outcomes. The trial will recruit older adults (aged 60 years and older) with mild-to-moderate MS-related disability who will be randomized into intervention or attention control conditions. Participants will complete assessments before and after completion of the conditions delivered over a 12-week period. Participants in the intervention group will have biweekly meetings with an exercise trainer in the Exercise Neuroscience Research Laboratory and receive verbal and visual instruction on step patterns for the SSE program. Participants will receive a mat for home-based practice of the step patterns, an instruction manual, and a logbook and pedometer for monitoring compliance. Compliance will be further monitored through weekly scheduled Skype calls. This feasibility study will inform future phase II and III RCTs that determine the actual efficacy and effectiveness of a home-based exercise program for older adults with MS.

Central monoaminergic systems are a site of convergence of signals conveying the experience of exercise to brain circuits involved in cognition and emotional behavior.

Physical activity can enhance cognitive function and increase resistance against deleterious effects of stress on mental health. Enhanced cognitive function and stress resistance produced by exercise are conserved among vertebrates, suggesting that ubiquitous mechanisms may underlie beneficial effects of exercise. In the current review, we summarize the beneficial effects of exercise on cognitive function and stress resistance and discuss central and peripheral signaling factors that may be critical for conferring the effects of physical activity to brain circuits involved in cognitive function and stress. Additionally, it is suggested that norepinephrine and serotonin, highly conserved monoamines that are sensitive to exercise and able to modulate behavior in multiple species, could represent a convergence between peripheral and central exercise signals that mediate the beneficial effects of exercise. Finally, we offer the novel hypothesis that thermoregulation during exercise could contribute to the emotional effects of exercise by activating a subset of temperature-sensitive serotonergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus that convey anxiolytic and stress-protective signals to forebrain regions. Throughout the review, we discuss limitations to current approaches and offer strategies for future research in exercise neuroscience.

Neuroscience of Exercise: Perspectives for Exercise Adherence

Neuroscience of Exercise: Perspectives for Exercise Adherence

Neuroscience of Exercise and Virtual Reality Applications

Neuroscience of Exercise and Virtual Reality Applications

Neuroscience of Exercise: Association Among Neurobiological Mechanisms and Mental Health.

Neuroscience is an emergent research field that comprises many multidisciplinary investigations, searches for explanations about the relationship between the body and the brain. Here, we will give a little summary of this field showing the main current findings. We discuss the lack of consistent data about the relationship among exercise for neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders, sports performance and rehabilitation, and therefore, the difficult to describe cause-effect associations or to describe in detail the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these associations.

Editorial: Physical activity, self-regulation, and executive control across the lifespan.

Editorial: Physical activity, self-regulation, and executive control across the lifespan.

Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation goes beyond.

We announce the annual meeting of Korean Society of Exercise Rehabilitation celebrated our tenth birthday this month. To this date, we have covered different genres of translational research, such as exercise neuroscience, rehabilitation program and physical practice, and also written about health promoting lifecycle, revitalization movement, and clinical sport medicine. We have done our best to keep our readers updated on the latest trends in rehabilitation exercise and to also taken an in-depth look in to the cutting edge of the times through popular exercise and scientific works. Simply put, there was nothing we didn’t cover at Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation, the official journal of Korean Society of Exercise Rehabilitation. Our anniversary meeting offers four topics that summarize the hottest trends in global exercise rehabilitation today, “biokinetics, application of therapeutic recreation for brain exercise, molecular mechanism of rehabilitation on neuroplasticity, and adult neurogenesis associated with exercise.” We also focused on real practice of exercise and scientific works adopting fresh conceptual approaches on specification and function at the molecular and cellular levels, neural circuits, systems and behavioral levels. The rehabilitation spawned by real life application is changing our daily life style. We are gradually becoming addicted to seeing the boundaries between creative real application and translational scientific research that are being to blur and transcend.

Kinesiology and Mental Health: The Promise of Exercise Neuroscience Research for Diseases and Disorders of the Brain

The relevance of kinesiology to the major issues of public health facing the nation is increasing with time. Of great importance is the area of exercise neuroscience in which remarkable developments have occurred in the past 35 years. The primary investigative efforts to date have been devoted to the impact of exercise on normal brain aging and recent efforts have also focused on the neurocognitive benefit to brain development in children. However, little work has been conducted in those with neurological disorders. The literature includes a number of animal studies that offer biological plausibility for the positive influence of exercise observed on brain structure and cognition in normal human subjects and, collectively, these studies provide a foundation on which to examine the role of exercise treatment in some of the major brain disorders that afflict adults and children today. These include the dementias, stroke, traumatic brain disorder (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and attentional deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A role for exercise in building resilience to such disorders is discussed here that may assist in reducing the financial and emotional burden of these affictions.

Behavioral neuroscience of emotion and exercise

Behavioral neuroscience of emotion and exercise

Exercise, brain, and cognition across the life span

This is a brief review of current evidence for the relationships between physical activity and exercise and the brain and cognition throughout the life span in non-pathological populations. We focus on the effects of both aerobic and resistance training and provide a brief overview of potential neurobiological mechanisms derived from non-human animal models. Whereas research has focused primarily on the benefits of aerobic exercise in youth and young adult populations, there is growing evidence that both aerobic and resistance training are important for maintaining cognitive and brain health in old age. Finally, in these contexts, we point out gaps in the literature and future directions that will help advance the field of exercise neuroscience, including more studies that explicitly examine the effect of exercise type and intensity on cognition, the brain, and clinically significant outcomes. There is also a need for human neuroimaging studies to adopt a more unified multi-modal framework and for greater interaction between human and animal models of exercise effects on brain and cognition across the life span.

Physical activity and the elderly

Functional ageing processes are characterized by a loss of performance capabilities regarding coordination, flexibility, strength, speed, and endurance. The effects of ageing processes on the cardiovascular system and skeletal muscle are the foci of attention. After age 30, the maximum aerobic dynamic performance capacity decreases by an average of 8% per decade. The causes are mainly a reduction in the maximum cardiac output and decreases in capillarization and in the skeletal muscle mass. An improvement in the maximum oxygen uptake by 18% and in the aerobic-anaerobic threshold by 22% was achieved in untrained men aged 55-70 years, in a 12-week-long bicycle ergometer-training programme. The strength of the skeletal muscle decreases particularly after 50-60 years of age. The main cause is the reduction in the number of motor units and muscle fibres. Further, modifications of the endothelial function and the development of sarcopenia are of particular importance in ageing processes. General aerobic dynamic training can improve the endothelial function in old age and thus help prevent cardiovascular diseases. Strength training is most appropriate for the prevention of sarcopenia. Imaging techniques over the last 20 years have provided new findings on the influence and the significance of physical activity on the brain. We call this new interdisciplinary area 'Exercise Neuroscience'. Demands on coordination and aerobic dynamic endurance are suitable in counteracting age-related neuronal cellular loss, synapsis hypotrophy, and in improving neurogenesis and capillarization. Adjusted physical activity is thus capable of counteracting age-related changes and performance loss not only in the cardiovascular system but also in the brain.