The Effects of a Single Bout of Acute Aerobic Exercise on Executive Inhibition and Prefrontal Cortex Mechanisms in Individuals with Different Types of Pain
CHENG Xiangjuan
YUE Heng
LIU Bo
LI Xueshan
BAO Hugejiletu
Abstract：Objective To explore the effect of a single acute aerobic exercise on the inhibitory function of different types of pain and the underlying neural mechanism,in order to provide references for promoting the management and intervention methods of different types of pain.Methods A total of 29 subjects,including those with chronic pain and healthy individuals,were selected.Acute pain was induced in the healthy subjects.Behavioral and functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS)techniques were used to investigate the differences in the performance of executive inhibition among different types of pain sufferers before and after the exercise intervention.Results The behavioral results showed that the reaction time of the chronic pain group in completing the executive inhibition task was significantly higher than that of the acute pain group.After the exercise intervention,the reaction time of both the chronic pain group and the acute pain group in completing the executive inhibition task significantly shortened,and the accuracy rate significantly improved.The fNIRS results indicated that after the exercise intervention,the oxygenated hemoglobin content in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC)and the right prefrontal eye field(FEF)of the acute pain group was significantly higher than that before the exercise,and the oxygenated hemoglobin content in the left DLPFC of the acute pain group was significantly higher than that of the chronic pain group.Conclusion A single acute aerobic exercise has a dual effect of behavioral and neural improvement on the inhibitory function in the acute pain group,while it only shows compensatory behavioral improvement in the chronic pain group.This result provides a neurobehavioral basis for clinical pain management,that is,during the acute pain period,acute aerobic exercise intervention can effectively improve the inhibitory function and alleviate the damage to the PFC neural activity,thereby delaying the chronic progression of pain.
Keywords：single acute aerobic exerciseexecutive inhibitionfunctional near-infrared spectroscopyprefrontal neural mechanisms
Publication Date：2025-10-30
Online Publishing Date：2025-11-20(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：9( 80-88 )