Effects Of Acute Moderate Aerobic Exercise On Executive Function Of College Students With Different Cardiopulmonary Fitness Levels

Objective:Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can improve the executive function of college students,and executive function is an advanced cognitive function,including three sub-components of inhibition,refresh and conversion.The improvement of executive function by exercise is affected by many conditions.Related studies have found that cardiopulmonary endurance level can regulate the effect of exercise on executive function.Therefore,this study combined with near infrared technology to explore the effect of 30 min acute moderate intensity aerobic exercise on executive function of college students with different cardiopulmonary endurance levels.Methods:40 college students aged 18-25 were selected as the research subjects.After the maximum oxygen uptake test,they were divided into high cardiopulmonary endurance group and low cardiopulmonary endurance group.The two groups of subjects were measured Flanker（restrain）,N-back（refresh）,More-oid shifting（conversion）three executive function tests before and after 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise,while using near-infrared equipment to monitor the changes of prefrontal cerebral blood flow.After the experiment,2（group:high cardiorespiratory endurance group,low cardiorespiratory endurance group）×2（time:pretest,posttest）×2（task type）repeated measurement variance analysis was performed on the subjects’behavior results（correct rate and reaction time）and near-infrared data（oxyhemoglobin concentration in prefrontal cortex）to explore the effect of 30 min moderate intensity aerobic exercise on executive function of college students with different cardiorespiratory endurance levels.Results:Behavioral results showed that there was a significant difference in the accuracy of 1-back and 2-back(F_（1,35）=4.741,p=0.036)in the low cardiorespiratory endurance group,while the accuracy of 1-back and 2-back(F_（1,35）=32.783,p=0.000)in the high cardiorespiratory endurance group was more significant.In the post-test,the 2-back reaction time(F_（1,35）=4.756,p=0.036)was significantly different,and the reaction time of the high cardiorespiratory endurance group was significantly lower than that of the low cardiorespiratory endurance group.There was a significant difference in More-oid shifting reaction between the low cardiorespiratory endurance group(F_（1,35）=5.438,p=0.026)and the high cardiorespiratory endurance group(F_（1,35）=45.477,p=0.000).Near-infrared data showed that the concentration of oxyhemoglobin in the left and right middle frontal gyrus of the post-test high cardiorespiratory endurance group increased significantly in the N-back task(F_（1,35）=11.243 P=0.002;in the post-test of More-oid shifting task,the concentration of oxyhemoglobin in the right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus of the high cardiorespiratory endurance group increased significantly(F_（1,35）=46.894 P=0.000).Conclusion:30min acute moderate intensity aerobic exercise can improve the executive function of college students.Compared with the low cardiorespiratory endurance group,the high cardiorespiratory endurance group showed better performance in memory refresh function and conversion function after exercise intervention,and had higher activation in the left and right middle frontal gyrus and right dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus.College students with high cardiorespiratory endurance levels are more likely to improve their executive function after moderate-intensity aerobic exercise.