Acute Exercise Improves Motor Memory Consolidation in Preadolescent Children

Abstract

Objective: The ability to acquire new motor skills is essential both during childhood and later in life. Recent studies have demonstrated that an acute bout of exercise can improve motor memory consolidation in adults. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether acute exercise protocols following motor skill practice in a school setting can also improve long-term retention of motor memory in preadolescent children.Methods: Seventy-seven pre-adolescent children (age 10.5 ± 0.75 (SD)) participated in the study. Prior to the main experiment age, BMI, fitness status and general physical activity level was assessed in all children and they were then randomly allocated to three groups. All children practiced a visuomotor tracking task followed by 20 min of rest (CON), high intensity intermittent floorball (FLB) or running (RUN) with comparable exercise intensity and duration for exercise groups. Delayed retention of motor memory was assessed 1 h, 24 h and 7 days after motor skill acquisition.Results: During skill acquisition, motor performance improved significantly to the immediate retention test with no differences between groups. One hour following skill acquisition, motor performance decreased significantly for RUN. Twenty-four hours following skill acquisition there was a tendency towards improved performance for FLB but no significant effects. Seven days after motor practice however, both FLB and RUN performed better when compared to their immediate retention test indicating significant offline gains. This effect was not observed for CON. In contrast, 7 days after motor practice, retention of motor memory was significantly better for FLB and RUN compared to CON. No differences were observed when comparing FLB and RUN.Conclusions: Acute intense intermittent exercise performed immediately after motor skill acquisition facilitates long-term motor memory in pre-adolescent children, presumably by promoting memory consolidation. The results also demonstrate that the effects can be accomplished in a school setting. The positive effect of both a team game (i.e., FLB) and running indicates that the observed memory improvements are determined to a larger extent by physiological factors rather than the types of movements performed during the exercise protocol.

Acute high‐intensity football games can improve children's inhibitory control and neurophysiological measures of attention

“…Discrepancies between previous endeavors and the current study could perhaps reside in methodological features. For example, several of the aforementioned studies found greater retention levels using a novel visuomotor precision task, whereas the current study did not find any additional benefits of performing a single bout of exercise following a task where visual information was encoded and probed. On the contrary, van Dongen et al demonstrated that acute high‐intensity exercise could improve long‐term retention in a visual memory task, albeit only when performed 4 hours post‐encoding.…”

“…This was achieved through several exercise modalities. For example, both a single running session and a game of unihockey facilitated visuomotor memory consolidation in children, resulting in improved performance 7 days post‐training . The potential for modulation through acute exercise decays as time passes between encoding and the exercise bout.…”

“…For example, both a single running session and a game of unihockey facilitated visuomotor memory consolidation in children, resulting in improved performance 7 days post-training. 45 The potential for modulation through acute exercise decays as time passes between encoding and the exercise bout. This is evident as reduced enhancements when exercise is performed after a 2-hour delay compared to directly following memory encoding.…”

A single exercise bout and locomotor learning after stroke: physiological, behavioural, and computational outcomes

“…This study has some methodological features that must be considered when interpreting the results. The most robust finding from all past exercise priming studies was that the effects of exercise on 24 h retention were even greater when the post-practice retention was measured after 7 days, regardless of the exercise parameters (Roig et al 2012;Thomas et al 2016a, b;Lundbye-Jensen et al 2017). While it is unlikely that an effect of exercise on locomotor learning would be observed at 7 days when no effect was found at 24 h in the present study, this possibility cannot be ruled out.…”

“…, b; Lundbye‐Jensen et al . ). While it is unlikely that an effect of exercise on locomotor learning would be observed at 7 days when no effect was found at 24 h in the present study, this possibility cannot be ruled out.…”