Exercise in isolation: a countermeasure for electrocortical, mental and cognitive impairments
Abeln, Vera, MacDonald-Nethercott, Eoin, Piacentini, Maria Francesca, Meeusen, Romain, Kleinert, Jens, Strueder, Heiko K., and Schneider, Stefan (2015) Exercise in isolation: a countermeasure for electrocortical, mental and cognitive impairments. PLoS ONE, 10 (5). e0126356. pp. 1-13.
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Abstract
Introduction: Mental impairments, including deterioration of mood and cognitive performance, are known to occur during isolation and space missions, but have been insufficiently investigated. Appropriate countermeasures are required, such as exercise, which is known to prevent mood disorders for prolonged space and isolation missions. Based on the interaction of brain activity, mood and cognitive performance, this study aims to investigate the effect of long-term isolation and confinement and the long-term effect of exercise on these parameters.
Methods: Eight male volunteers were isolated and confined for about eight month during the winter period at the Antarctic Concordia Station. Every six weeks electroencephalographic measurements were recorded under rest conditions, and cognitive tests and a mood questionnaire were executed. Based individual training logs, subjects were afterwards separated into an active (> 2500 arbitrary training units/interval) or inactive (< 2500 arbitrary training units/interval) group.
Results: A long-term effect of exercise was observed for brain activity and mood. Regularly active people showed a decreased brain activity (alpha and beta) in the course of isolation, and steady mood. Inactive people instead first increased and than remained at high brain activity accompanied with a deterioration of mood. No effect of exercise and isolation was found for cognitive performance.
Conclusion: The findings point out the positive effect of regularly performed voluntary exercise, supporting subjective mental well-being of long-term isolated people. The choice to be regularly active seems to support mental health, which is not only of interest for future isolation and space missions.
| Item ID: | 41880 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| Additional Information: | Copyright: © 2015 Abeln et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Funders: | German Space Agency (DLR) |
| Projects and Grants: | DLR 50WB0819 |
| Date Deposited: | 08 Dec 2015 18:43 |
| FoR Codes: | 11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1106 Human Movement and Sports Science > 110602 Exercise Physiology @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 92 HEALTH > 9299 Other Health > 929999 Health not elsewhere classified @ 100% |
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