Acute effects of aerobic exercise promote learning.

The benefits that physical exercise confers on cardiovascular health are well known, whereas the notion that physical exercise can also improve cognitive performance has only recently begun to be explored and has thus far yielded only controversial results. In the present study, we used a sample of young male subjects to test the effects that a single bout of aerobic exercise has on learning. Two tasks were run: the first was an orientation discrimination task involving the primary visual cortex, and the second was a simple thumb abduction motor task that relies on the primary motor cortex. Forty-four and forty volunteers participated in the first and second experiments, respectively. We found that a single bout of aerobic exercise can significantly facilitate learning mechanisms within visual and motor domains and that these positive effects can persist for at least 30 minutes following exercise. This finding suggests that physical activity, at least of moderate intensity, might promote brain plasticity. By combining physical activity-induced plasticity with specific cognitive training-induced plasticity, we favour a gradual up-regulation of a functional network due to a steady increase in synaptic strength, promoting associative Hebbian-like plasticity.

A beat-by-beat analysis of cardiovascular responses to dry resting and exercise apnoeas in elite divers.

PURPOSE: Cardiovascular responses during resting apnoea include three phases: (1) a dynamic phase of rapid changes, lasting at most 30 s; (2) a subsequent steady phase; and (3) a further dynamic phase, with a continuous decrease in heart rate (HR) and an increase in blood pressure. The interpretation was that the end of the steady phase corresponds to the physiological apnoea breaking point. This being so, during exercise apnoeas, the steady phase would be shorter, and the rate of cardiovascular changes in the subsequent unsteady phase would be faster than at rest. METHODS: To test these hypotheses, we measured beat-by-beat systolic (SBP), diastolic, and mean blood pressures (MBP), HR, and stroke volume (SV) in six divers during dry resting (duration 239.4 ± 51.6 s) and exercise (30 W on cycle ergometer, duration 88.2 ± 20.9 s) maximal apnoeas, and we computed cardiac output ([Formula: see text]) and total peripheral resistance (TPR). RESULTS: Compared to control, at the beginning of resting (R1) and exercising (E1) apnoeas, SBP and MBP decreased and HR increased. SV and [Formula: see text] fell, so that TPR remained unchanged. At rest, HR, SV, [Formula: see text], and SBP were stable during the subsequent phase; this steady phase was missing in exercise apnoeas. Subsequently, at rest (R3) and at exercise (E2), HR decreased and SBP increased continuously. SV returned to control values. Since [Formula: see text] remained unchanged, TPR grew. CONCLUSIONS: The lack of steady phase during exercise apnoeas suggests that the conditions determining R3 were already attained at the end of E1. This being so, E2 would correspond to R3.