Short-Term High-Intensity Interval Exercise Promotes Motor Cortex Plasticity and Executive Function in Sedentary Females

Min Hu; Ningning Zeng; Zhongke Gu; Yuqing Zheng; Kai Xu; Lian Xue; Lu Leng; Xi Lu; Ying Shen; Junhao Huang

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2021.620958

Short-Term High-Intensity Interval Exercise Promotes Motor Cortex Plasticity and Executive Function in Sedentary Females

Front Hum Neurosci. 2021 Apr 23:15:620958. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.620958. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Min Hu¹, Ningning Zeng², Zhongke Gu³, Yuqing Zheng¹, Kai Xu³, Lian Xue⁴, Lu Leng⁵, Xi Lu⁶, Ying Shen⁷, Junhao Huang¹

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Sports and Health Promotion, Scientific Research Center, Guangzhou Sport University, Guangzhou, China.
² Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Affective and Neuroscience, Center for Brain Disorders and Cognitive Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
³ Department of Sport and Health Sciences, Nanjing Sport Institute, Nanjing, China.
⁴ Scientific Laboratory Center, Nanjing Sport Institute, Nanjing, China.
⁵ College of Foreign Languages, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
⁶ Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China.
⁷ Rehabilitation Medicine Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that regular exercise modulates motor cortical plasticity and cognitive function, but the influence of short-term high-intensity interval training (HIIT) remains unclear. In the present study, the effect of short-term HIIT on neuroplasticity and executive function was assessed in 32 sedentary females. Half of the participants undertook 2 weeks of HIIT. Paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (ppTMS) was used to measure motor cortical plasticity via short intracortical inhibition (SICI) and intracortical facilitation (ICF). We further adapted the Stroop task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to evaluate executive function in the participants. The results indicated that, compared with the control group, the HIIT group exhibited decreased ICF. In the Stroop task, the HIIT group displayed greater activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) even though no significant difference in task performance was observed. These findings indicate that short-term HIIT may modulate motor cortical plasticity and executive function at the neural level.

Keywords: executive function; high-intensity interval training; intracortical facilitation; sedentary females; short intracortical inhibition.