Aerobic Exercise Decreases Negative Affect by Modulating Orbitofrontal-Amygdala Connectivity in Adolescents

Abstract

Long-term negative affect in adolescence is associated with impairment in quality of life, interpersonal function, and social adaptation. Although physical exercise could decrease negative emotion, the underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. Acute exercise with controlled intensity might be a good experimental paradigm to unravel the potential neural mechanisms underlying the effects of physical exercise on negative affect. In this study, twenty-three males in late adolescence were randomly assigned to acute exercise group (AG) or control group. The experiment contained pre-test and post-test session interleaved with 30-min moderate-intensity exercise or seated rest. In each session, a resting-state fMRI scanning was conducted followed by completing Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and Profile of Mood State. Bilateral amygdala was used as seed region to calculate t voxel-wised functional connectivity (FC) of amygdala to whole brain. The results demonstrated, for the first time, that AG exhibited increased FC between right amygdala and right orbital frontal cortex. Significantly decreased negative affect was also observed in AG. Moreover, the increased rOFC-amygdala FC was also associated with the decreased depression score. Our findings suggest that exercise-induced decreased negative affect might be modulated by functional interactions of amygdala with both cognitive control and limbic networks, which offers a meaningful insight for clinical treatment and prevention of emotional disorders in late adolescence.

The power of negative and positive episodic memories

“…Less is known about how exercise affects the amygdala. To date, most research has focused on the effect of exercise on emotion regulation, showing that exercise can boost prefrontal function (Ligeza et al, 2021) and can increase connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala in ways that have been interpreted as indicative of improved emotion regulation (Ge et al, 2021). If exercise is indeed increasing hippocampal function while decreasing amygdala engagement, it may create an intriguing scenario in which an emotional experience is remembered primarily with hippocampal-binding mechanisms engaged.…”

Mood Status Response to Physical Activity and Its Influence on Performance: Are Chronotype and Exercise Timing Affect?

“…Physical activity could stimulate the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and (-)-noradrenaline, increase the functional connection between the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex, and enhance the execution function, thus reducing anxiety and depression, as well as increasing euphoria and sense of accomplishment [40][41][42]. The results of the studies included in this review are in line with previous findings [43][44][45] that either regular long-term exercise, short-term exercise or a physical function test exerted varying degrees of positive effects on the psychological responses, such as relieving confusion, depression, and other negative emotions.…”

Evaluating the Cognitive Effects of Video-Induced Negative Affect in College Students: A Comparative Study between Acute Exercise and Music Listening

“…This indicates that acute exercise can lead to a change in blood flow, and then affect the working memory of individuals. Some research has suggested that acute exercise-induced lowering of negative affect may be mediated by the bilateral amygdala in relation to the functional connectivity of cognitive control and limbic networks, because exercise groups exhibited increased functional connectivity between the right amygdala and right orbital frontal cortex ( Ge et al 2021 ), suggesting that acute exercise can effectively improve individual cognition. The influence of music listening on cognition can be explained as follows.…”