Mehdi Shahbazi; Aboalfazl Shayan; Ali Samadi; Zahra Nemati
Abstract
There are evidences in both animal and human studies which show that exercise has beneficial effects on the central nervous system and cognition. So, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of resistance exercise on memory and probable mechanisms of this effect (i.e. neurotrophic factors) ...
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There are evidences in both animal and human studies which show that exercise has beneficial effects on the central nervous system and cognition. So, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of resistance exercise on memory and probable mechanisms of this effect (i.e. neurotrophic factors) in sedentary students. 30 sedentary students (mean age, 23.8±1.6 yr) were randomly divided into two groups: control and resistance. After blood sampling and memory test, they continued their exercises for 5 weeks based on the resistance training protocol. In the end, at least 48 hours after the last training session, the memory test and blood samples were collected in order to eliminate the temporary effects of exercises. For analysis of the data, Covariance test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used (P≥0.05). Results showed that resistance exercises significantly increased memory score (P<0.05). Although BDNF significantly increased after the exercises, the exercises did not influence the expression of any neurotrophic factors (P˂0.05). Furthermore, there was no significant correlation between variations of memory scores and variations of expression of neurotrophic factors (P˂0.05). The findings indicated that exercise can improve memory.
Abolfazl Shayan; Fazlolah Bagherzadeh; Mehdi Shahbazi; Siroos Choobineh
Abstract
The vital role of exercise in many aspects of daily life and somewhat cognitivefunctions are acknowledged but a point that has recently gained researchers'attention is to investigate the effect of different types of exercises on cognitivefunctions and the mediating mechanisms of this effect. The aim ...
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The vital role of exercise in many aspects of daily life and somewhat cognitivefunctions are acknowledged but a point that has recently gained researchers'attention is to investigate the effect of different types of exercises on cognitivefunctions and the mediating mechanisms of this effect. The aim of this study was todetermine the effect of two types of endurance and resistance exercises on thelevels of attention and BDNF of sedentary students. Therefore, 46 sedentarystudents from University of Tehran (mean age 24.3+1.8 yr) were assigned to threegroups: endurance, resistance and control after the Stroop pretest. After bloodsamples had been collected, the subjects continued their exercise protocol for fiveweeks. Finally, at least 48 hours after the last session, the Stroop test wasperformed and blood samples were collected in order to eliminate the temporaryeffects of exercises. For data analysis, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, paired sample ttest, one–way ANOVA, MANOVA test, Dunnett's T3 post hoc test and Pearsoncorrelation coefficient test were used (P≤0.05). Results showed a significantimprovement in the response time of Stroop test in both endurance and resistancegroups while expression of BDNF significantly increased only in endurance group(P<0.05). The control group showed no improvement in any variables. In addition,there was no significant difference between the effect of two types of exercise onthe response time of the Stroop test and expression of BDNF (P>0.05). There wasno significant correlation between the variations of response time of the Stroop testand expression of BDNF (P>0.05). Finally, this research indicated that exercisecan improve cognitive functions, but there was no significant difference betweenendurance and resistance exercises in response to this question that which activitywas more useful.