Changes in brain cortical activity measured by EEG are related to individual exercise preferences
Introduction
In the last twenty years the promotion of exercise has become an important public health message. This can be attributed primarily to the impact of exercise on cardio-respiratory and metabolic parameters and their influence on physical health [1]. But apart from those peripheral changes recent evidence suggests that there is also a major influence of exercise on brain cortical function which seems to be connected to changes in cognitive performance, general arousal and well being [2], [3].
It is generally agreed that there are temporary changes in the EEGs α and β activities caused by exercise [4], [5]. These changes were first reported in the 1950s [6] and are considered to reflect a state of accumulated relaxation [4], [7], [8].
An important aspect when considering effects of exercise on brain cortical activity is to assign effects to specific brain regions. Recent publications have contributed to the hypothesis that especially α activity within frontal brain regions is affected by exercise [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. Although promising a fundamental limitation of these approaches is linked to missing possibilities of brain imaging during and immediately after exercise. In the recent years standardised low resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) has become an accepted method to localise changes in brain cortical activity by analysing EEG derivations [14], [15], [16], [17] especially in experimental situations that do not allow to use standard brain imaging methods like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) [13], [18]. sLORETA is a source localisation method relying on mathematical models of the bio-electrical generators and the volume conductors within which they lie. It is based on standardised EEG recordings, which are modeled to a probabilistic head model provided by the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI). Active cortical regions are identified created by allocating the raw sLORETA values of individual voxels to their corresponding Brodmann areas (BA) or cerebral gyri on the basis of the coordinates of the digitized Talairach Atlas [19]. Apart from sLORETA there are similar approaches to overcome the inverse solution like BESA, ST-MAP, MUSIC and others. By comparing these methods it gets clear that each has its own specific advantages but sLORETA was shown to give the most satisfactory results [20].
Just recently we were able to show that major changes in brain cortical activity occurred when individuals were allowed to exercise at their preferred intensity rather than constricting their intensity by heart-rate limits [21]. This is in accordance with previous findings, linking relaxational effects of exercise to individuals' physical activity history and exercise preferences [8], [22]. Accordingly we hypothesized that changes in brain cortical activity are connected not only to preferred exercise intensities but also to participants' exercise history. Within this study we tested a group of regular runners with little or no preferences to bike or arm crank exercise (i.e. none of these participants ever used an arm crank before, none of them was a regular biker) on changes in brain cortical activity after treadmill, bike and arm crank ergometry. We hypothesized that previously reported changes in EEG α and β activities, which were linked to recreational processes (changes in frontal α activity [12] and overall β activity [23]) would be dominant after treadmill but not arm crank and bike exercise.
Section snippets
Participants and procedure
The Institutional Review Committee of the German Sport University approved this study. All procedures were in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki for human subjects. Twelve adults, either students or academic staff of the German Sport University, aged 26.3 ± 3.8 (male (n = 8): 25.6 ± 4.2; female (n = 4): 27.5 ± 2.89) participated in this study. All participants were regular runners performing a minimum of 2 h weekly training mainly for health reasons. Some of the participants also reported to
Physiological values during incremental exercises
Mean exercise time showed no differences between the three different kinds of ergometry (treadmill 15.42 ± 2.81 min; arm crank 15.42 ± 4.08 min; bike 15.00 ± 3.19 min; F(2,22) = 0.14; p = 0.87; Fig. 1A). LAC values increased after exercise (p < 0.001). No significant differences were found in LAC values after arm crank, bike and treadmill performance (F(2, 20) = 0.99; p = 0.39; Fig. 1C). Heart rate was increased at maximal exhaustion (p < 0.001). Differences in maximal heart rate (HRmax; F(2, 20) = 5.55; p < 0.05)
Discussion
This study examined changes in brain cortical activity after different forms of exercise performed at maximal intensity. We used three different kinds of ergometry (treadmill, bike, arm crank) and recorded EEG activity prior to and up to half an hour post ergometry. A localisation analysis using sLORETA showed an increase of α and β activities immediately post exercise, which was spread widely across the scalp. 15 and 30 min post exercise a specific activation/deactivation pattern in the β
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank our participants for spending some of their valuable study time during the winter semester 2007 assisting us. Thanks to Petra Wollseiffen, Moritz Fölger and Matthias Lohne for their help with data collection. A special thank goes to Dr. Jayne Lucke for proof reading the first version of this manuscript. This study was made possible by a grant from the German Space Agency (DLR) 50WB0519 and a young investigators grant awarded to S. Schneider by the German Sport University.
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