Effect of Acute Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercise on Cognitive Function

Background/Purpose: Exercise training positively affects cognitive function, improves focus in children and decreases memory loss in older adults.  Lifelong exercisers have improved memory capacity compared to non-exercising peers.  Regular exercise training programs, specifically aerobic exercise, spanning from six weeks or longer improves cognitive function (Stroth, 2009).  Although some research has shown an improvement in learning immediately after short sprints (Winter et. al., 2007), minimal research documents the influence of acute exercise on overall cognitive abilities. The goal of this study was to assess the effects of acute aerobic and acute anaerobic exercise on the immediate, overall cognitive function in female college students.  It was hypothesized that exercise would improve cognitive function and anaerobic exercise would be more influential than aerobic exercise.

Method: Thirty female college students (age, yrs: 20.5 ± 1.38; ht., cm: 166.6 ± 7.4; wt., kg: 61.2 ± 6.7) volunteered for this study. Participants were randomly assigned to a control group (N= 11), where no exercise was performed, an anaerobic group (N= 9), where 100-yard sprints were performed, and an aerobic group (N= 10), where exercise on a stationary bike for 15 minutes was performed.  Using six ImPACT^TM modules to assess cognitive function, exercise subjects were tested directly after exercise and control subjects were tested with no prior exercise.  Data was analyzed at the 0.05 level using a two-tailed t-test in Minitab16.

Analysis/Results: There was no statistical difference between the aerobic and anaerobic groups.  The anaerobic group performed significantly better than the control group in visual motor speed (p< 0.05) and reaction time (p= 0.015) assessments. There was a trend towards improvement for the anaerobic group in the cognitive efficiency index (p= 0.059) assessment of the ImPACT^TM test.  Although there was no difference between the aerobic and control group, the aerobic group approached significance in visual motor speed (p= 0.082) and reaction time (p= 0.164) assessments. 

Conclusions: The general trend of higher scores for the anaerobic group suggests that exercise improves certain aspects of cognitive function. Furthermore, the results suggest that anaerobic exercise is more effective in enhancing reaction time and motor speed than aerobic exercise.  Because the aerobic group approached significance, further research with an increased number of subjects may result in a better understanding of the relationship between aerobic exercise and cognitive function.