Exercise-induced hypoalgesia, cognitive inhibition and emotion regulation v1

Abstract

The current design was set up for an experiment investigating exercise-induced hypoalgesia (EIH) in humans. 80 participants performed an aerobic bicycling exercise and an isometric knee extension exercise and a quiet rest control condition. Dependent measurements were a) pressure pain thresholds and b) temporal summation of pain, and additional salivary cortisol. Blood pressure measurements were taken as a influential factor on EIH. All measurements were taken 1) immediately before exercise and quiet rest 2) immediately after exercise and quiet rest and 3) 15 minutes after exercise and quiet rest. In addition to EIH, cognitive function was assessed using a cognitive task, the so called stop-signal task. Furthermore, the influence of two different emotion regulation strategies in comparison to a control condition was investigated. For this, the participants were divided into 3 Groups: two groups received an instruction for emotion regulation (suppression or mindful monitoring) and one group received a control instruction. This protocols provides a detailed description of the procedures undertaken in this experiment.