其他摘要 | Emotional health issues are becoming increasingly prominent in today's society, and serious emotional problems can be detrimental to an individual's physical and mental health and even cause self-injury and suicidal behavior. Numerous studies have shown that a certain dose of physical activity not only significantly improves mood states, but also reshapes brain structure and function, improving well-being and quality of life. However, the results of existing studies on mood improvement by exercise are still inconsistent. The reason for this is that these mood-improving effects are strongly associated with inter-individual differences. Gender, emotional state and trait factors all influence the mood effects after exercise. In addition, the neural mechanisms underlying the emotional effects of exercise due to individual differences are not clear. Therefore, this study used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with network analysis to explore the intervention effects of acute aerobic exercise on individuals of different genders and anxiety subgroups and to reveal the differences in the representation of these individual factors in brain function.
A total of 83 college students were recruited and randomly assigned to the experimental group (44) and the control group (39). The experimental group underwent a 30-minute moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (MAE) intervention and the control group underwent a 30-minute reading task. Participants were administered a mood questionnaire measure and resting-state fMRI scan before and after the intervention. Study 1 explored the emotional responses after the acute aerobic exercise intervention and the neural mechanisms behind them, focusing on the roles played by different amygdala subregions (medial amygdala and lateral amygdala) to find the emotional neural circuits closely related to the exercise intervention. Study 2 focused on the differential role of gender (male and female) and anxiety level (high anxiety, low
anxiety) in aerobic exercise-induced emotional responses from the perspective of brain functional networks, and examined the differences in the representations on neural circuits related to emotion regulation induced by acute aerobic exercise from the perspective of brain functional networks for different individual difference factors. Study 3 used network analysis techniques to explore the effects of aerobic exercise on different individual emotional networks and the interactions between the nodes in the networks by constructing a pretest emotional network, an exercise intervention network and a bridge network, and to verify and expand the conclusions of study 2.
Study 1 found that MAE significantly improved self-esteem and general mood state. Increased self-esteem after exercise was associated with increased functional connectivity (FC) between the right medial amygdala (mAmyg) and the left inferior cerebellum; decreased negative affect was associated with increased functional connectivity between the bilateral mAmyg-right parietal lobe and the right mAmyg-left orbitofrontal lobe. Study 2 found that acute aerobic exercise was significantly more effective than men in improving self-esteem, energy, tension, and general mood state in women, and that the reduction in negative mood in women after the intervention was associated with decreased FC between the orbitofrontal, anterior insula, lateral amygdala, and the nucleus accumbens in the left hemisphere. In addition, it was found that acute aerobic exercise significantly reduced anxiety in the high-anxiety group and significantly improved positive and negative emotions except for anxiety in the low-anxiety group. After exercise, the reduction in positive affect in the high-anxiety group was associated with enhanced FC in the ventral cingulate gyrus (posterior cingulated gyrus) and dorsal caudate nucleus; the reduction in anxiety in the low-anxiety group was associated with enhanced FC in the right middle frontal gyrus and left ventral cingulate gyrus. Study 3 found significant gender differences in emotion-related networks and high and low anxiety subgroup differences for the exercise intervention condition. In women, there were more and stronger associations between nodes in the exercise intervention network, and the intervention condition directly affected the core self-esteem and tension in the pretest emotion network, whereas in men, the exercise intervention radiated to other negative emotions by directly affecting the confusion node. In the exercise intervention network of the high anxiety group, the intervention condition was only directly associated with state anxiety, whereas in the exercise intervention network of the low anxiety group, the exercise intervention condition directly affected confusion and fatigue and indirectly affected the core nodes of tension and energy, which in turn radiated to other emotions. The bridge network further revealed an association between increased self-esteem in women and reduced FC in the left orbitofrontal and left dorsal anterior insula; improved self-esteem, vigor, and anxiety in the low-anxiety group were associated with significantly enhanced FC in the right middle frontal gyrus to the left ventral cingulate gyrus, and in the right nucleus accumbens to the left superior temporal gyrus.
Based on the above findings, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1) MAE has a better effect on women's mood than men's, and has a better effect on individuals with low anxiety than those with high anxiety, but it has a significant reduction effect on individuals with high anxiety. 2) Self-esteem and tension are key to mood improvement. 3) Functional changes in emotion-related brain regions such as orbitofrontal cortex, anterior insular, basal ganglion (caudate nucleus, putamen, accumbens), cingulate gyrus and cerebellum may be the underlying neural mechanism of emotional improvement after exercise. Moreover, the brain functional connectivity patterns of post-exercise emotional effects were significantly different in individuals with different genders and anxiety levels. This study attempts to explore the effect of acute aerobic exercise on mood from the perspective of individual differences by using an integrated network analysis method that combines brain networks and behavioral networks. On the one hand, it provides an objective scientific basis for the development of individualized prevention and intervention programs for mood disorders and helps to understand the brain mechanisms behind individual differences; on the other hand, the integrated network analysis method also broadens new analytical ideas for relevant studies in health promotion and clinical areas that include multiple dimensions and levels.
This study tries to combine brain network and behavior network to build a comprehensive network, which is conducive to broaden the new research and analysis methods, and to further explore the brain and behavior as a whole. In addition, the results of this study are helpful to better understand the behavioral and neural mechanisms of exercise behavior affecting emotions, and provide objective scientific basis for the development of personalized prevention and intervention programs for emotional health problems of different groups, which also has important practical significance for the normal development and improvement of mental health of different groups. |
修改评论