Effect of cerebral vasomotion during physical exercise on associative memory, a near-infrared spectroscopy study

Abstract

Abstract. Regular physical exercise has been shown to benefit neurocognitive functions, especially enhancing neurogenesis in the hippocampus. However, the effects of a single exercise session on cognitive functions are controversial. To address this issue, we measured hemodynamic changes in the brain during physical exercise using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and investigated related effects on memory consolidation processes. Healthy young participants underwent two experimental visits. During each visit, they performed an associative memory task in which they first encoded a series of pictures, then spent 30-min exercising or resting, and finally were asked to recall the picture associations. We used NIRS to track changes in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration over the prefrontal cortex during exercise and rest. To characterize local tissue oxygenation and perfusion, we focused on low frequency oscillations in NIRS, also called vasomotion. We report a significant increase in associative memory consolidation after exercise, as compared to after rest, along with an overall increase in vasomotion. Additionally, performance improvement after exercise correlated positively with power in the neurogenic component (0.02 to 0.04 Hz) and negatively with power in the endothelial component (0.003 to 0.02 Hz). Overall, these results suggest that changes in vasomotion over the prefrontal cortex during exercise may promote memory consolidation processes. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

Acute physical exercise improves memory consolidation in humans via BDNF and endocannabinoid signaling

“…We also tested the effects of acute physical exercise on long-term memory during a 10 surprise memory retest 3 months after the last experimental visit (see Figure 1A). In 11 line with our previous results (Bosch et al, 2017), we hypothesized that moderate 12 intensity exercise would yield the largest benefits, especially at immediate test. 13…”

“…Work in animal models also implicates endocannabinoid 8 signaling in exercise-induced adult hippocampal neurogenesis (Dubreucq et al, 9 2010;Hill et al, 2010). The presence of the endocannabinoid anandamide (AEA) is 10 essential for neurogenesis and the lack of the enzyme responsible for AEA hydrolysis 11 significantly increases cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus ( although existing studies report a wide range of effects, from positive to detrimental 20 (Bosch et al, 2017;Chang et al, 2012;Roig et al, 2013;Tomporowski, 2003; van 21 Dongen et al, 2016). It is important to note that most of these studies used between-22 subjects comparisons with physical exercise performed at various intensities or 23 durations, which may partly explain disparate outcomes (Basso et al, 2015).…”

“…We tested 3 nineteen participants using a cross-over randomized within-subjects design. We used 4 a hippocampus-dependent associative memory task (Bosch et al, 2017;Igloi et al, 5 2015) in which participants learned series of 6 successive pictures. To assess the 6 influence of different intensities of physical exercise, memory for these series was 7 tested following a moderate intensity exercise session, a high intensity exercise 8 session or a rest period with blood samples taken before and after exercise or rest.…”

Differences in Net Information Flow and Dynamic Connectivity Metrics Between Physically Active and Inactive Subjects Measured by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) During a Fatiguing Handgrip Task

“…Exercise is known to improve cardiovascular health (Myers, 2003) and brain health (Peri-Okonny et al, 2015;Mueller et al, 2017). Regular exercise produces beneficial alterations in the brain that maintain or improve cognition (Bosch et al, 2017;Mueller et al, 2017), and promote motor function (Perrey, 2013), known as exercise-dependent neuroplasticity.…”

“…The hemodynamic oscillations at these frequency bands can be measured using functional brain mapping using functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) (Zhang et al, 2015), or functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) (Li et al, 2012;Bosch et al, 2017;Andersen et al, 2018;Cao et al, 2018b). FNIRS measures non-invasively the change of oxyhemoglobin ( HbO) and deoxyhemoglobin ( Hb) concentrations resulting from neurovascular coupling secondary to neuronal activation by utilizing light at near-infrared wavelengths (650-1000 nm).…”