The Impact of Acute Exercise Timing on Memory Interference

Lack of effects of acute exercise intensity on mnemonic discrimination

The hippocampus is thought to support episodic memory by pattern separation, thereby supporting the ability to discriminate high similarity items. Past research evaluating whether acute exercise can improve mnemonic discrimination of high similarity items is mixed. The present experiment attempts to extend these prior mixed findings by evaluating the effects of multiple exercise intensities on hippocampal-dependent, mnemonic discrimination and memory performance. Fifty-seven young adults completed a three-condition (control, moderate-intensity, and vigorous-intensity), within-subjects crossover pretest-posttest comparison. We observed no effects of acute exercise on recognition memory or mnemonic discrimination. We discuss the implications of these null findings with the broader literature by discussing the complexity of this potential exercise-mnemonic discrimination relationship, including the unique role of exercise intensity, differences in the level of processing (e.g., conceptual vs. perceptual), and unique brain regions involved in mnemonic discrimination.

A Review of Cognitive Changes During Acute Aerobic Exercise

A growing body of work has investigated the effects of acute, or single bouts of, aerobic exercise on cognitive function. However, review of this research has largely focused on changes following exercise, with less focus on cognitive changes during exercise. The purpose of this review is to discuss the critical characteristics of this literature to date, including: (1) what has been done, (2) what has been found, and (3) what is next. Furthermore, previous meta-analytic reviews have demonstrated there is a small positive effect on cognition when measured during exercise, with executive functions showing the largest effects. However, these reviews group executive functions together. Here we explore how inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility are individually impacted by factors such as exercise intensity or duration. Searches of electronic databases and reference lists from relevant studies resulted in 73 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Studies were grouped by executive and non-executive cognitive domains, intensity and duration of exercise bouts. Within the executive domain, we found that effects on working memory and cognitive flexibility remain mixed, effects on inhibition are clearer. Moderate intensity exercise improves response time, vigorous intensity impairs accuracy. Moderate to vigorous intensity improves response time across non-executive domains of attention, motor speed and information processing, with no significant effects on accuracy. Memory processes are consistently improved during exercise. Effects of exercise duration on response time and accuracy are nuanced and vary by cognitive domain. Studies typically explore durations of 45 min or less, extended exercise durations remain largely unexplored. We highlight factors to consider when assessing exercise-cognition relationships, as well as current gaps and future directions for work in this field.

The beneficial effects of physical exercise on visuospatial working memory in preadolescent children

The relationship between physical exercise and improvement in specific cognitive domains in children and adolescents who play sport has been recently reported, although the effects on visuospatial abilities have not yet been well explored. This study is aimed at evaluating in school-age children practicing artistic gymnastics the visuospatial memory by using a table version of the Radial Arm Maze (table-RAM) and comparing their performances with those ones who do not play any sport. The visuospatial performances of 14 preadolescent girls practicing artistic gymnastics aged between 7 and 10 years and those of 14 preadolescent girls not playing any sport were evaluated in the table-RAM forced-choice paradigm that allows disentangling short-term memory from working memory abilities. Data showed that the gymnasts obtained better performances than control group mainly in the parameters evaluating working memory abilities, such as within-phase errors and spatial span. Our findings emphasizing the role of physical activity on cognitive performances impel to promote physical exercise in educational and recreational contexts as well as to analyse the impact of other sports besides gymnastics on cognitive functioning.

Acute and Chronic Exercise Effects on Human Memory: What We Know and Where to Go from Here

Although the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of memories was once thought to happen within a single memory system with multiple processes operating on it, it is now believed that memory is comprised of both distinct and interacting brain systems [...].