Effects of acute aerobic exercise on resting state functional connectivity of motor cortex in college students.

This study intends to inspect the effects of acute aerobic exercise (AE) on resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) in motor cortex of college students and the moderating effect of fitness level. METHODS: 20 high fitness level college students and 20 ordinary college students were recruited in public. Subjects completed 25 min of moderate- and high-intensity acute aerobic exercise respectively by a bicycle ergometer, and the motor cortex's blood oxygen signals in resting state were monitored by functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS, the Shimadzu portable Light NIRS, Japan) in pre- and post-test. RESULTS: At the moderate intensity level, the total mean value of RSFC pre- and post-test was significantly different in the high fitness level group (pre-test 0.62 ± 0.18, post-test 0.51 ± 0.17, t(19) = 2.61, p = 0.02, d = 0.58), but no significant change was found in the low fitness level group. At the high-intensity level, there was no significant difference in the difference of total RSFC between pre- and post-test in the high and low fitness group. According to and change trend of 190 "edges": at the moderate-intensity level, the number of difference edges in the high fitness group (d = 0.58, 23) were significantly higher than those in the low fitness group (d = 0.32, 15), while at high-intensity level, there was a reverse trend between the high fitness group (d = 0.25, 18) and the low fitness group (d = 0.39, 23). CONCLUSIONS: moderate-intensity AE can cause significant changes of RSFC in the motor cortex of college students with high fitness, while high fitness has a moderating effect on the relationship between exercise intensity and RSFC. RSFC of people with high fitness is more likely to be affected by AE and show a wider range of changes.

Effects of aquatic exercise on the improvement of lower-extremity motor function and quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease: A meta-analysis.

Objective: To systematically evaluate the effect of aquatic exercise interventions on the improvement of lower-extremity motor function and quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease. Methods: Two researchers independently searched the literature using the PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases. The search period was from the establishment of the database to December 2021. The subject heading search included "hydrotherapy," "hydro therapies," "hydro therapeutics," "water therapy," "aquatic exercise therapy," "aquatic therapy," "water-based exercise," "Parkinson," "Parkinson disease," "Parkinson's disease," "Parkinson's syndrome," "primary Parkinsonism," "paralysis agitans," and "randomized controlled trial (RCT)." Result: A total of 698 articles were retrieved from the four databases by searching for subject headings, and 10 RCT articles were finally included. The balance ability of aquatic exercise in patients with Parkinson's disease (weighted mean differences [WMD] = 2.234, 95% CI: 1.112-3.357, Z = 3.9, p < 0.01), walking ability (WMD = -0.911, 95% CI: -1.581 to -0.241, Z = 2.67, p < 0.01), and quality of life (WMD = -5.057, 95% CI: -9.610 to -0.504, Z = 2.18, p = 0.029) were improved, but there was no significant difference in motor function (WMD = -0.328, 95% CI: -1.781 to 1.125, Z = 0.44, p = 0.658). Conclusion: Compared with conventional rehabilitation therapy, aquatic exercise can effectively improve balance, walking ability, and quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease. However, it had no obvious effect on improving motor function. This study was limited by the number and quality of the included studies, and more high-quality studies are needed to verify this. Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42022365103.