Acute aerobic exercise offered general benefits to cognitive performance irrespective of executive function demands, particularly in participants with lower pre-test cognitive performance.
Meta-Analysis
Does acute aerobic exercise improve executive function?
Acute aerobic exercise provides general benefits to cognitive performance, with greater effects seen in those with lower baseline cognitive performance.
An increasing number of studies has focused on the after-effects of acute aerobic exercise on executive function. To date, empirical evidence lacks consensus regarding whether acute aerobic exercise has beneficial effects on executive function. To identify possible sources of this discrepancy, the present study focused on executive function demands and pre-test cognitive performance, and performed the first meta-analysis of individual participant data (IPD meta-analysis) in this area of research. Results indicated that the beneficial after-effects of acute aerobic exercise on cognitive performance were greater in participants with lower cognitive performance at pre-test. Acute aerobic exercise offered general benefits to cognitive performance irrespective of executive function demands, when pre-test cognitive performance was appropriately controlled. Thus, the present IPD meta-analysis suggests that pre-test cognitive performance is one possible source of the conflicting findings in acute exercise studies. Future research is encouraged to consider pre-test cognitive performance to avoid underestimating the beneficial after-effects of acute exercise.
Ishihara et al. (Thu,) reported a meta-analysis. Acute aerobic exercise was evaluated on Executive function and cognitive performance. Acute aerobic exercise offered general benefits to cognitive performance irrespective of executive function demands, particularly in participants with lower pre-test cognitive performance.