High impact running improves learning
Introduction
Physical exercise seems to be beneficial to cognition. Epidemiological studies show that more frequent (self-reported) regular physical activity is associated with a reduced risk for age-related neurodegenerative diseases, like dementia or Parkinson’s disease (Abbott et al., 2004, Colcombe et al., 2004, Larson et al., 2006, Laurin et al., 2001, van Gelder et al., 2004, Weuve et al., 2004). Beneficial effects of exercise on cognition may, however, be due to an overall healthier life style (non-smoking, better nutrition) in already cognitively high functioning subjects (Abbott et al., 2004, Kalmijn et al., 2000). Another confounder is that a preexisting, yet undiagnosed cognitive disorder may have led to a concomitant reduction in physical activity (Weuve et al., 2004). Thus, longitudinal intervention studies are better suited to determine the link between physical exercise and cognition. These studies show that several months of regular physical exercise led to improved mental functions or a slower cognitive decline in elderly subjects (Colcombe & Kramer, 2003 for a meta-analysis), with varying effect sizes for different cognitive functions (Fig. 1).
Several studies probed the effect of acute bouts of exercise on cognitive functions (Etnier et al., 1997, Tomporowski, 2003, Tomporowski and Ellis, 1986 for a review). Most of these studies, however, did not directly assess effects on learning or memory, but rather investigated the effect of exercise on various neuropsychological measures, like simple reaction time tasks (e.g., Hogervorst, Riedel, Jeukendrup, & Jolles, 1996), or on exercise-related tasks like decision making in soccer (e.g., McMorris & Graydon, 1997). Studies probing the effect of exercise on memory led to divergent results, depending on the length and intensity of the exercise intervention. After short-duration anaerobic exercise (up to 2 min), short-term memory was facilitated (Davey, 1973). During or immediately after long anaerobic exercise (5–40 min), no effects on memory were found (Sjoberg, 1980, Tomporowski et al., 1987). When the exercise condition led to dehydration, either no effects or even negative effects on memory were noted (Cian et al., 2001, Cian et al., 2000).
Similar results were obtained for healthy children: Sibley and Etnier reported positive effects of regular physical exercise for various cognitive tasks, but not for “pure” memory performance in their recent meta-analysis (Sibley & Etnier, 2003). Findings in children with attention deficit disorder are less conclusive: positive effects of exercise on disturbing behaviors have been found (Allison et al., 1995, Tantillo et al., 2002), but effects on cognition have not been reported so far (Craft, 1983).
In contrast to the preliminary evidence regarding the relation of physical exercise and cognition in humans, animals consistently showed improved learning after daily physical exercise for up to 7 months (Anderson et al., 2000, Baruch et al., 2004, Fordyce and Farrar, 1991, van Praag et al., 1999). Negative reports can be explained by an interaction of task complexity and heterogeneous task performance of the animals (Braszko, Kaminski, Hryszko, Jedynak, & Brzosko, 2001) or may be due to the use of a non-voluntary exercise condition (forced treadmill running; Burghardt, Fulk, Hand, & Wilson, 2004).
In animal studies, upregulations of various neurotransmitters in the brain, especially dopamine and norepinephrine, were found (Hattori et al., 1994, Meeusen and De Meirleir, 1995, Sutoo and Akiyama, 2003). In addition to catecholamines, the release of neurotrophic factors, like brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF), or insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), is increased in the brain after a regimen of daily physical exercise in animals (Carro et al., 2000, Gobbo and O’Mara, 2005, Neeper et al., 1995, Neeper et al., 1996). The amount of neurotrophic factor release correlated with faster learning and better retention over a period of 1 week (Vaynman, Ying, & Gomez-Pinilla, 2004). Exercise also enhances neurogenesis (van Praag et al., 1999, van Praag et al., 1999), which could also contribute to better learning.
In humans, the association between learning improvement and exercise-induced humoral changes has not yet been investigated. It has only been shown that the P300 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) has a larger amplitude and a shortened latency in attentional challenging tasks, consistent with an overall arousing effect, after a short bout of anaerobic exercise compared to rest (Hillman et al., 2003, Magnie et al., 2000, Nakamura et al., 1999). Furthermore, peripheral catecholamine levels may increase after physical exercise (Hyyppa et al., 1986, Koch et al., 1980, Kraemer et al., 1999, Musso et al., 1990), but several other studies found no changes (Bracken et al., 2005, Hartling et al., 1989, Sothmann et al., 1987). The only study probing central dopamine level changes after a single bout of exercise by positron emission tomography yielded negative results (Wang et al., 2000).
Outside the realm of exercise research, increased peripheral epinephrine levels were correlated with enhanced memory performance in both animals (Costa-Miserachs, Portell-Cortes, Aldavert-Vera, Torras-Garcia, & Morgado-Bernal, 1994) and humans (Cahill & Alkire, 2003). Together, these findings suggest that an exercise-induced increase of catecholamines and neurotrophic factors might improve learning.
We here examined the effects of single bouts of controlled intense anaerobic or moderate aerobic physical exercises (lactate levels above 10 mmol/l or below 2 mmol/l, respectively; Spurway, 1992) on learning and memory. We chose a language learning model because lexical learning is an important aspect of every day life. In search of the mediating mechanisms, we additionally assessed exercise-induced changes in mood, peripheral catecholamine plasma levels and BDNF serum levels and correlated these parameters with subjects’ cognitive performance.
Section snippets
Subjects
A total of 30 healthy male sport students (mean age: 22.2 ± 1.7 years; range: 19–27) participated as subjects in this prospective randomized controlled trial. Two subjects failed to complete the study due to exercise injuries unrelated to the study. Another subject failed to learn, presumably due to inattentive responding (reactions times on average <300 ms). Therefore, data analysis was conducted with a total of 27 subjects
Learning performance
Using a cross-over study design, learning performance was assessed directly after high impact anaerobic sprints (intense condition), low impact aerobic running (moderate condition), or a period of rest (relaxed condition).
Discussion
The main finding of the present study was that intense exercise directly improves learning: After two sprints of less than 3 min each, subjects learned 20 percent faster compared to moderate exercise or being sedentary. To our knowledge, this is the first study of immediate exercise-induced effects on a complex learning task with a parallel analysis of neurophysiological correlates (changes in peripheral catecholamine or BDNF levels) in humans. Our results suggests that short bouts of exercise
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Cusanuswerk, the NRW-Nachwuchsgruppe Kn2000 of the Nordrhein-Westfalen Ministry of Education and Research (Foe.1KS9604/0), the Interdisciplinary Center of Clinical Research Muenster (IZKF Projects FG2 and Kne3/074/04), the Volkswagen Stiftung (Az.: I/80 708), as well as the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF: 01GW0520).
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These authors contributed equally.