Dose-Response Matters! - A Perspective on the Exercise Prescription in Exercise-Cognition Research

Fabian Herold; Patrick Müller; Thomas Gronwald; Notger G Müller

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02338

Dose-Response Matters! - A Perspective on the Exercise Prescription in Exercise-Cognition Research

Front Psychol. 2019 Nov 1:10:2338. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02338. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Fabian Herold¹, Patrick Müller^{1

2}, Thomas Gronwald³, Notger G Müller^{1

2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Research Group Neuroprotection, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Magdeburg, Germany.
² Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty, Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany.
³ Department Performance, Neuroscience, Therapy and Health, Medical School Hamburg, University of Applied Sciences and Medical University, Hamburg, Germany.
⁴ Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Magdeburg, Germany.

Abstract

In general, it is well recognized that both acute physical exercises and regular physical training influence brain plasticity and cognitive functions positively. However, growing evidence shows that the same physical exercises induce very heterogeneous outcomes across individuals. In an attempt to better understand this interindividual heterogeneity in response to acute and regular physical exercising, most research, so far, has focused on non-modifiable factors such as sex and different genotypes, while relatively little attention has been paid to exercise prescription as a modifiable factor. With an adapted exercise prescription, dosage can be made comparable across individuals, a procedure that is necessary to better understand the dose-response relationship in exercise-cognition research. This improved understanding of dose-response relationships could help to design more efficient physical training approaches against, for instance, cognitive decline.

Keywords: cognition; neuroplasticity; neuroprotection; personalized medicine; personalized training; physical activity.