summary: A new study reveals that moderate exercise can improve cognitive performance (CP), even in conditions of sleep deprivation and low oxygen levels.
In this study, two experiments with a total of 24 participants were conducted to examine the effects of partial and complete sleep deprivation and hypoxia on CP. Results consistently showed that a 20-minute cycling session significantly improved CP, regardless of sleep status or oxygen level.
This groundbreaking study advances our understanding of how physical activity can reduce cognitive impairment caused by common stressors.
Important facts:
- This study demonstrates that moderate-intensity exercise improves cognitive performance even after complete or partial sleep deprivation and under hypoxic conditions.
- In the first experiment, participants who restricted their sleep time to 5 hours per night showed inconsistent CP at rest, but improved performance after exercise.
- The second experiment revealed that participants’ CP improved after exercise, despite not sleeping all night and having lower oxygen levels.
sauce: University of Portsmouth
A new study investigated how sleep, oxygen levels, and exercise affect our ability to perform mental tasks.
Sleep is fundamental to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, with 7 to 9 hours per night recommended for adults. However, recent studies show that 40% of the world’s population is not getting enough nutrition.
Consequences of chronic sleep deprivation include cardiovascular disease, obesity, neurodegenerative diseases, and depression. In the short term, sleep deprivation can reduce cognitive performance (CP), negatively impacting alertness, judgment, and emotional state.
A study led by the University of Portsmouth found that cognitive performance improved during moderate-intensity exercise, regardless of a person’s sleep status or oxygen levels.
Dr Joe Costello, from the university’s School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences (SHES), said: ‘Existing research shows that exercise can improve or maintain cognitive performance even when oxygen levels are reduced. Ta. However, this is the first study to suggest that CP also improves after complete and partial sleep deprivation and when combined with hypoxia.
“The results of this study significantly add to what we know about the relationship between exercise and these stressors and help strengthen the message that exercise is medicine for the body and brain.”
This study physiology and behaviorTwo experiments were conducted with 12 participants each (24 in total). The first looked at the effects of partial sleep deprivation on a person’s cognitive performance, and the second looked at the effects of complete sleep deprivation and hypoxia. In both cases, all participants experienced improved cognitive performance after their 20 minutes of cycling.
“Because we were considering exercise as an active intervention, we decided to use a moderate-intensity program recommended in existing literature,” added Dr. Costello.
“If the exercise had been longer or harder, the negative results could have been amplified and become a stressor in and of itself.”
In the first experiment, subjects were allowed only five hours of sleep a night over three days. Every morning they were given his seven tasks to perform at rest and then while cycling. They were also asked to rate their sleepiness and mood before completing the task.
The results showed that the effects of three nights of partial sleep on executive function were inconsistent. The paper says a possible reason for this is that some people are more resilient to mild or moderate sleep deprivation. However, regardless of sleep status, moderate-intensity exercise improved performance on all tasks.
In the second experiment, participants went one night without sleep and were then placed in a hypoxic (low oxygen level) environment at a university extreme environment laboratory. Even though oxygen levels decreased, exercise continued to improve cognitive performance.
Co-lead author Dr Thomas Williams, from the university’s Extreme Environments Research Group, explained why the research team decided to consider combinations of stressors in their study: For example, people who travel to high altitudes are also more likely to experience disrupted sleep patterns.
“One potential hypothesis for why exercise improves cognitive performance relates to increased cerebral blood flow and oxygenation, but our findings suggest that exercise in environments with low oxygen levels This suggests that participants are still able to perform cognitive tasks even when they are “better than when resting under the same conditions.” ”
According to this paper, the reason CP improves during exercise, even when sleep deprived and oxygen deprived, is due to many psychophysiological factors such as cerebral blood flow, arousal, and motivation, as well as brain regulation. It may be due to changes in hormone levels.
This suggests that cognitive abilities are not solely dependent on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) region of the brain, despite its important role in task performance.
“The PFC is very sensitive to the neurochemical environment and very sensitive to stress,” explains co-lead author Juan Ignacio Badariotti from the university’s psychology department.
“It controls our thoughts, actions and emotions and is thought to be the main part of the brain associated with executive function.
“However, our findings raise the need to consider that the mechanisms behind CP are not isolated to this region, but are the product of a series of coordinated processes widely distributed in different cortical and subcortical regions. It suggests that there is.”
The paper recommends further research to uncover what neurobiological mechanisms lie behind cognitive processes. This discovery will support not only climbers and skiers, but also anyone who experiences sleep deprivation or oxygen deprivation, including parents of young children and shift workers.
The authors also acknowledge that the study included only healthy young people, and several withdrew due to adverse events. They hope to conduct further research on the relationship between CP and stressors by recruiting a wider range of participants.
The research is a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth, the University of Chichester, the University of Surrey, the University of Teesside, the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and São Paulo State University in Brazil.
About this exercise/sleep/neuroscience research news
author: robin montagu
sauce: University of Portsmouth
contact: Robin Montagu – University of Portsmouth
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
“Effects of sleep deprivation, acute hypoxia, and exercise on cognitive performance: A multi-experimental study combining stressorsWritten by Joe Costello and others. physiology and behavior
abstract
Effects of sleep deprivation, acute hypoxia, and exercise on cognitive performance: A multi-experimental study combining stressors
introduction
Sleep deprivation and hypoxia have both been shown to impair executive function. Conversely, moderate-intensity exercise is known to improve executive function. In multiple experimental studies, we demonstrated that i) three consecutive nights of partial sleep deprivation (PSD) (Experiment 1) and ii) the isolated and combined effects of a single exercise followed by moderate-intensity exercise performed. We tested the hypothesis that it would improve functional decline. Nights of total sleep deprivation (TSD) and acute hypoxia (Experiment 2).
method
Using a strictly randomized controlled crossover design, 12 healthy participants volunteered for each experiment (24 total, 5 women). In both experiments, seven executive function (two-choice reaction time, logical relationships, manikin, mathematical processing, 1-back, 2-back, 3-back) tasks were performed at rest and at moderate intensity. It was completed in a semirecumbent position for minutes. cycling. The task was completed under the following conditions: before and after three consecutive nights of PSD and habitual sleep (Experiment 1), and under normoxia and acute hypoxia (F).I○2= 0.12) one night of habitual sleep and one night of TSD (Experiment 2).
result
The effects of 3 nights of PSD on executive function were inconsistent, whereas 1 night of TSD (regardless of hypoxia) impaired executive function. Importantly, executive function improves during acute bouts of moderate-intensity exercise, regardless of sleep or hypoxia.
conclusion
These new data demonstrate that moderate-intensity exercise improves executive function performance after both PSD and TSD, regardless of hypoxia. The key determinants and/or mechanisms involved in this improvement still need to be elucidated. Future research should aim to identify these mechanisms and apply these important findings to occupational and skilled performance settings.
