Chronic, acute and protocol-dependent effects of exercise on psycho-physiological health during long-term isolation and confinement

Abstract

Exercise could prevent physical and psychological deteriorations, especially during pandemic times of lock-down scenarios and social isolation. But to meet both, the common exercise protocols require optimization based on holistic investigations and with respect to underlying processes. This study aimed to clarify individual chronic and acute effects of continuous and interval running exercise on physical and cognitive performance, mood, and affect and to explore underlying neurophysiological factors during a terrestrial simulated space mission.Six volunteers (three females) were isolated for 120 days. Accompanying exercise training consisted of continuous and interval running protocol a cross-over design. Incremental stage tests on a treadmill were done frequently to test physical performance. Actigraphy was used to monitor physical activity level. Cognitive performance, mood (MoodMeter®), affect (PANAS), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), vascular-endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and saliva cortisol were investigated prior to, four times during, and after isolation, pre- and post-exercise on two separate days, respectively. As a chronic effect, physical performance increased (and IGF-1 tended) in the course of isolation and training until the end of isolation. Subjective mood and affect state, as well as cognitive performance, basal BDNF and VEGF levels, were well-preserved across the intervention. No acute effects of exercise were detected, besides slower reaction time after exercise in two out of nine cognitive tests, testing sensorimotor speed and memory of complex figures. Consistently higher basal IGF-1 concentrations and faster reaction time in the psychomotor vigilance test were found for the continuous compared to the interval running protocol. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that 120 days of isolation and confinement can be undergone without cognitive and mental deteriorations. Regular, individual exercise training is hypothesized to play an important role in this regard. Continuous running exercise seems to trigger higher IGF-1 levels and vigilance compared to interval running. Systematic and prolonged investigations and larger sample size are required to follow up on exercise-protocol specific differences in order to optimize the exercise intervention for long-term psycho-physiological health and well-being.

Effects of physical activity in child and adolescent depression and anxiety: role of inflammatory cytokines and stress-related peptide hormones

“…Eight weeks of moderate-intensity group jogging significantly reduces 24-h urinary CORT and adrenaline secretion in young women with moderate depression (Nabkasorn et al, 2006). Aerobic running training for 120 consecutive days maintained the stability of BDNF, insulin-like growth factor 1, vascular endothelial growth factor, and C, preventing physical and psychological deterioration (Abeln et al, 2022).…”

Neuropsychological considerations for long-duration deep spaceflight

“…For example, the design and development of direct and embedded tools to evaluate real-time cognitive performance could be used for or adapted to clinical evaluations or operational applications such as military, humanitarian, or emergency service organizations. For example, the Cognition test battery (Basner et al, 2015), which was developed for astronauts, has been utilized for several Earth-based investigations (Beckner et al, 2021;Abeln et al, 2022;Makowski et al, 2022;Tait et al, 2022). Moreover, spaceoriented investigations are in progress to test whether introducing artificial gravity during long bouts of simulated microgravity (bed rest) can counteract the development of neurocognitive declines (NASA, 2023aa) or structural and functional alterations in the human brain (NASA, 2023ab).…”