Changes in Cerebral Oxyhaemoglobin Levels During and After a Single 20-Minute Bout of Moderate-Intensity Cycling

Abstract

Aerobic exercise produces changes in cerebral oxyhaemoglobin (OHb) concentration; however, the effects of exercise on OHb during the post-exercise period remain to be established. The aim of the present study was to evaluate OHb levels during and after a 20-min bout of moderate-intensity cycling exercise. After a 3-min rest period, 12 healthy volunteers (9 women, 3 men) cycled for 20 min at an intensity corresponding to 50% of their VOmax, after which they were monitored during a 15-min post-exercise rest period. OHb levels in the right (R-PFC) and left prefrontal cortices (L-PFC), right (R-PMA) and left premotor areas (L-PMA), supplementary motor area (SMA), and primary motor cortex (M1) were measured using near-infrared spectroscopy. A one-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to compare mean pre-exercise OHb levels with OHb levels during the last 5 min of exercise and the last 5 min of the post-exercise rest period. OHb levels increased significantly (p < 0.01) between the pre-exercise rest period and the last 5 min of the exercise session for each region of interest (range: 0.040-0.085 mM·cm). OHb levels did not return to pre-exercise values during the 15-min post-exercise rest period. OHb levels during the last 5 min of the post-exercise rest period were significantly higher than pre-exercise values in the L-PFC, L-PMA, SMA, and M1 (p < 0.01). Our results indicate that cortical oxygenation persists for at least 15 min following a 20-min bout of moderate-intensity cycling, and that aerobic exercise may facilitate neuroplasticity.

Changes in neurovascular coupling during cycling exercise measured by multi-distance fNIRS: a comparison between endurance athletes and physically active controls

“…Furthermore, previous studies revealed exercise-induced activations in prefrontal cortex (PFC) showing that Hb and HHb levels respond as a function of both exercise load and duration in both experts (Rupp et al 2008) and non-experts (Auger et al 2016; Giles et al 2014; Jung et al 2015). However, previous studies focusing on neurovascular coupling at several intensity levels show that there is no consensus concerning the type of exercise (incremental tests with short stages vs. constant-load exercises), duration of exercise (Giles et al 2014; Tsubaki et al 2016) and intensity (Auger et al 2016; Byun et al 2014; Giles et al 2014; Takehara et al 2017; Tsubaki et al 2018).…”

Acute Aerobic Exercise Based Cognitive and Motor Priming: Practical Applications and Mechanisms

“…Performing a cognitive task after exercise is potentially ideal as it takes advantage of the heightened cortical activity during recovery. Twenty to 30 min of moderate intensity (50-60% VO 2max ) cycling increased post-exercise cortical oxygenation (i.e., activation), which aligned with improvements in post-exercise executive function performance (Stroop task) (Yanagisawa et al, 2010;Stavres et al, 2017;Tsubaki et al, 2018). Increased PFC oxygenation may be indicative of higher cortical activity and, therefore, greater mental effort leading to improved cognitive processes such as working memory and attention (Herold et al, 2018).…”

“…Upon cessation of low-moderate intensity aerobic exercise, cerebral oxygenation remains elevated for up to 30 min (Faulkner et al, 2016;Stavres et al, 2017;Tsubaki et al, 2018). Performing a cognitive task after exercise is potentially ideal as it takes advantage of the heightened cortical activity during recovery.…”

New Directions in Exercise Prescription: Is There a Role for Brain-Derived Parameters Obtained by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy?

“…Based on the drawbacks of EEG and the advantages of fNIRS, fNIRS is currently better suited for measurements of changes in cortical brain activity during physical exercises in unconstrained environments [ 50 , 102 , 103 ]. In fact, fNIRS has been applied during a variety of physical exercises such as juggling [ 104 ], balancing [ 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 ], walking (for review see [ 111 , 112 ]), resistance exercises [ 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 ], dancing [ 117 , 118 , 119 ], tai chi [ 120 , 121 ], climbing [ 122 ], synchronized swimming routines [ 123 ], table tennis [ 124 ], running [ 125 , 126 , 127 ], and predominantly during cycling [ 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 , 146 , 147 , 148 , 149 ,…”

“…With respect to the practical application of fNIRS during physical exercising, it is mandatory to emphasize that movement artefacts or systemic physiological artefacts, which occur during physical exercising, influence the accuracy of the brain signal measurement of fNIRS significantly [ 99 , 101 , 149 , 151 , 230 , 231 , 232 , 233 , 234 , 235 ]. To minimize the influence of such signal confounders, appropriate data processing techniques should be applied (e.g., short-separation channel regression (SSR) to account for superficial blood flow [ 99 , 111 , 176 , 235 , 236 ] or SSR in conjunction with accelerometer signals to account for superficial blood flow and motion artefacts in CW-NIRS [ 237 ]).…”