Swim, Bike, Sit: Effects of Acute Exercise on Memory and Inhibitory Control

Abstract Physical exercise is increasingly recognized for its positive effects on cognition. Acute bouts of exercise may enhance cognitive performance, yet the specific effects of different exercise modalities remain underexplored. This study investigates the effects of 20 min of cycling and swimming, as compared to a sedentary control group, on memory performance, inhibitory control and their neurophysiological correlates. Ninety-seven participants were assigned to one of the two exercise groups, or a sedentary control group. Participants performed a memory task consisting of word list encoding, a visual Go/NoGo paradigm as distractor, and free recall both before and after the intervention. Mobile EEG was used to record brain-electrical activity during the whole procedure. The main analyses focused on the cycling and control groups, while the swimming group was included in a second, exploratory analysis. Results show that cycling, but not swimming had a positive effect on word recall rate and Go/NoGo accuracy compared to the control group. A general reduction in Go reaction times from pre to post was observed across groups. Event-related potentials analysis revealed that swimming led to significantly shorter NoGo N200 latencies. These findings suggest that acute cycling can benefit episodic memory and inhibitory control in young adults as compared to staying sedentary, while swimming, a more complex type of physical exercise, may increase cortical processing speed. Future research should further explore exercise-specific effects, considering different modalities of physical exercise, timing, and neurophysiological mechanisms.