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Behavioral and Neural Evidence of the Rewarding Value of Exercise Behaviors: A Systematic Review

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Abstract

Background

In a time of physical inactivity pandemic, attempts to better understand the factors underlying the regulation of exercise behavior are important. The dominant neurobiological approach to exercise behavior considers physical activity to be a reward; however, negative affective responses during exercise challenge this idea.

Objective

Our objective was to systematically review studies testing the automatic reactions triggered by stimuli associated with different types of exercise behavior (e.g. physical activity, sedentary behaviors) and energetic cost variations (e.g. decreased energetic cost, irrespective of the level of physical activity). We also examined evidence supporting the hypothesis that behaviors minimizing energetic cost (BMEC) are rewarding.

Methods

Two authors systematically searched, screened, extracted, and analyzed data from articles in the MEDLINE database.

Results

We included 26 studies. Three outcomes of automatic processes were tested: affective reactions, attentional capture, and approach tendencies. Behavioral results show that physical activity can become attention-grabbing, automatically trigger positive affect, and elicit approach behaviors. These automatic reactions explain and predict exercise behaviors; however, the use of a wide variety of measures prevents drawing solid conclusions about the specific effects of automatic processes. Brain imaging results are scarce but show that stimuli associated with physical activity and, to a lesser extent, sedentary behaviors activate regions involved in reward processes. Studies investigating the rewarding value of behaviors driving energetic cost variations such as BMEC are lacking.

Conclusion

Reward is an important factor in exercise behavior. The literature based on the investigation of automatic behaviors seems in line with the suggestion that physical activity is rewarding, at least for physically active individuals. Results suggest that sedentary behaviors could also be rewarding, although this evidence remains weak due to a lack of investigations. Finally, from an evolutionary perspective, BMEC are likely to be rewarding; however, no study has investigated this hypothesis. In sum, additional studies are required to establish a strong and complete framework of the reward processes underlying automatic exercise behavior.

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Contributions

MB and BC conceived the new approach to exercise behavior as described in the Introduction, conducted the systematic review, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors subsequently contributed to improvement of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthieu P. Boisgontier.

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Funding

Matthieu Boisgontier is supported by research Grants (1504015N, 1501018N), a post-doctoral fellowship, and a Grant for a long stay abroad from the Research Foundation—Flanders (FWO). The other authors report no sources of funding used to assist in the preparation of this article.

Conflict of interest

Boris Cheval, Rémi Radel, Jason Neva, Lara Boyd, Stephan Swinnen, David Sander, and Matthieu Boisgontier declare that they have no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this review.

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Cheval, B., Radel, R., Neva, J.L. et al. Behavioral and Neural Evidence of the Rewarding Value of Exercise Behaviors: A Systematic Review. Sports Med 48, 1389–1404 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0898-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0898-0

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