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Aortic stiffness, central pulse pressure and cognitive function following acute resistance exercise

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European Journal of Applied Physiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

While resistance exercise (RE) is known to be beneficial for overall health, one bout of RE acutely increases aortic stiffness and pulse pressure (PP). Increases in aortic stiffness and PP in a setting of aging has been shown to detrimentally impact cognitive function. This study examined whether increased aortic stiffness and PP from an acute bout of RE is associated with cognitive function.

Methods

Thirty-five participants (21 ± 2 years) underwent cognitive testing before and after either an acute bout of RE or a non-exercise time-control condition. Cognitive function was assessed as reaction time and accuracy during memory recognition, attention (Flanker) and working memory (N-back) tasks. Aortic stiffness and PP were measured via pulse wave velocity (PWV) and pulse wave analysis, respectively, using a brachial oscillometric device.

Results

There were significant increases in aortic PWV and aortic PP following RE (p < 0.05) with no change in PWV or PP following the non-exercise control condition (p > 0.05). There was no change in accuracy metrics (% hits) across conditions for any cognitive task (p > 0.05). There was a condition-by-time interaction for reaction time for the memory task (p < 0.05) driven by a significant decrease in reaction times following RE (p < 0.05) with no change in reaction time following the non-exercise control (p > 0.05).

Conclusion

Functional increases in aortic stiffness and pulse pressure following acute RE occur in the absence of detrimental changes in cognitive function in young, healthy adults.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

BP:

Blood pressure

CON:

Control condition

DBP:

Diastolic blood pressure

HR:

Heart rate

MOCA:

Montreal Cognitive Assessment

Pb:

Backward wave pressure

Pf:

Forward wave pressure

PP:

Pulse pressure

PWV:

Pulse wave velocity

RE:

Resistance exercise

RIx:

Wave reflection index

RM:

Repetition maximum

RT:

Reaction time

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Funding

No funding was received for this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Human Performance Laboratory, Department of Exercise Science, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 13244, USA

    Samuel Palmiere, Marcus Wade, Jacob P. DeBlois, Wesley K. Lefferts & Kevin S. Heffernan

Authors
  1. Samuel Palmiere
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  2. Marcus Wade
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  3. Jacob P. DeBlois
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  4. Wesley K. Lefferts
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  5. Kevin S. Heffernan
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Contributions

MW was instrumental in assisting with study design, IRB/ethics submission, participant recruitment, and data collection. SP assisted with data collection and wrote large portions of a manuscript initial draft. WL supervised all data collection and assisted with data interpretation, analyses, and manuscript preparation. JD assisted with data interpretation, analyses, tables, figures, and heavy editorial contributions on the manuscript. KH helped conceptualize the study, study design, initial piloting, initial data collection (with additional monitoring of data collection throughout to ensure high quality data acquisition), data interpretation, and preparation of the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevin S. Heffernan.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Communicated by Keith Phillip George.

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Palmiere, S., Wade, M., DeBlois, J.P. et al. Aortic stiffness, central pulse pressure and cognitive function following acute resistance exercise. Eur J Appl Physiol 118, 2203–2211 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-3948-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-3948-2

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