The effects of a single bout of exercise on motor memory interference in the trained and untrained hemisphere

Abstract

Abstract-Increasing evidence suggests that cardiovascular exercise has positive effects on motor memory consolidation. In this study, we investigated whether a single session of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) mitigates the effects of practicing an interfering motor task. Furthermore, learning and interference effects were assessed in the actively trained and untrained limb as it is known that unilateral motor learning can cause bilateral adaptations. Subjects performed a ballistic training and then the HIIT either before (HIIT_before) or after (HIIT_after) practicing an interfering accuracy task (AT). The control group (No_HIIT) did not participate in the HIIT but rested instead. Performance in the ballistic task (BT) was tested before and after the ballistic training, after the exercise and practice of the AT and 24 h later. After ballistic training, all groups showed comparable increases in performance in the trained and untrained limb. Despite the practice of the AT, HIIT_ before maintained their BT performance after the highintensity interval training whereas HIIT_after (trend) & No_HIIT showed prominent interference effects. After 24 h, HIIT_before still did not show any interference effects but further improved ballistic motor performance. HIIT_after counteracted the interference resulting in a comparable BT performance after 24 h than directly after the ballistic training while No_HIIT had a significantly lower BT performance in the retention test. The results were similar in the trained and untrained limb. The current results imply that a single session of cardiovascular exercise can prevent motor interference in the trained and untrained hemisphere. Overall learning was best, and interference least, when HIIT was performed before the interfering motor task. Ó

Experimental investigation of the effects of acute exercise on memory interference

“…Although not in the context of a cognitive-related episodic memory task, recently, Lauber et al 46 evaluated whether a single session of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can mitigate the effects of an interfering motor task. Participants performed ballistic training and then the HIIT either before or after practicing an interfering accuracy motor task.…”

Exercise Reduces Competition between Procedural and Declarative Memory Systems

“…Given the prevailing assumption that declarative and procedural memory systems are fundamentally distinct ( Squire and Zola, 1996 ), it is not surprising that studies investigating the protective effect of exercise on interference have focused exclusively on the declarative or procedural memory systems separately. Acute cardiovascular exercise has shown to have an enhancing effect on procedural memory during consolidation, reducing interference between motor skills acquired in close temporal proximity ( Rhee et al, 2016 ; Lauber et al, 2017 ; Jo et al, 2019 ). The results of the present study demonstrate, that acute exercise can also protect the consolidation of procedural memory against the interfering effects of an intervening bout of declarative learning.…”

“…Despite exposure to interference, a small off-line improvement was observed 24 h later for individuals who exercised compared with those who did not. Jo et al (2019) expanded this work using a 6-h retention interval that did not include sleep and found similar protection for a novel procedural memory from interference through exercise (also see Lauber et al, 2017). However, all these studies used primary and secondary (i.e., interfering) motor tasks with overlapping internal models that competed for the same neural resources during memory processing (Zach et al, 2012).…”

Cardiovascular exercise and motor learning in non-disabled individuals: A systematic review with a behavioral emphasis

“…(continued) practice. From the 30 non-fatigue studies investigating the cardiovascular effects on motor learning, 19 demonstrated some positive effects from cardiovascular exercise on motor performance 20,32,33 or learning 21,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] . In the 30 studies investigating the effects of cardiovascular exercise (without excessive fatigue) on motor learning (retention test), some of them reported null effects 20,32,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59] , but anyone demonstrated adverse effects.…”

“…Continuous, serial, and discrete skills Most studies that identified positive effects of the cardiovascular exercise on consolidation processes used continuous and temporal synchronization tasks 21,34,35,37,40,41,[43][44][45]47,48,50 . Nevertheless, most studies that used serial tasks did not demonstrate effects from cardiovascular exercise on the motor memory consolidation 20,51,52,54,[56][57][58] , or just demonstrated effect on relearning 60 .…”