Beneficial effects of acute high-intensity exercise on electrophysiological indices of attention processes in young adult men

Background: Emerging research suggests that a single bout of aerobic exercise can improve cognition, brain function and psychological health. Our aim was to examine the effects of high-intensity exercise on cognitive-performance and brain measures of attention, inhibition and performance-monitoring across a test-battery of three cognitive tasks. Method: Using a randomised cross-over design, 29 young men completed three successive cognitive tasks (Cued Continuous Performance Task [CPT-OX]; Eriksen Flanker Task; four-choice reaction-time task [Fast Task]) with simultaneous electroencephalogram (EEG) recording before and after a 20-min high-intensity cycling exercise and resting control session. Cognitive-performance measures, EEG power and event-related potential measures, were obtained during the tasks. Random-intercept linear models were used to investigate the effects of exercise, compared to rest, on outcomes. Results: A single bout of exercise significantly (p < 0.05) increased the amplitude of the event-related potential Go P3, but had no effect on the contingent negative variation (CNV), Cue P3 or NoGo P3, during the CPT-OX. Delta power, recorded during the CPT-OX, also significantly increased after exercise, whereas there was no effect on cognitive-performance in this task. Exercise did not influence any cognitive-performance or brain measures in the subsequent Flanker or Fast Tasks. Conclusion: Acute high-intensity exercise improves brain-indices reflecting executive and sustained attention during task performance (Go P3 and delta activity), in the CPT-OX, but not anticipatory attention (Cue P3 and CNV) or response inhibition (NoGo P3) in young-adult men. Exercise had no effect on cognitive-performance or brain measures in the subsequent Flanker and Fast tasks, which may potentially be explained by the time delay after exercise.