Sebastian Ludyga, Fabienne Bruggisser, Rahel Leuenberger, Toru Ishihara, Keita Kamijo, Mark Brotzmann, Sarah Trescher, Markus Förster, Markus Gerber
{"title":"Acute effects of exercise on gaze fixation and affective response inhibition in children with autism spectrum disorder: A randomized cross-over study","authors":"Sebastian Ludyga, Fabienne Bruggisser, Rahel Leuenberger, Toru Ishihara, Keita Kamijo, Mark Brotzmann, Sarah Trescher, Markus Förster, Markus Gerber","doi":"10.1002/aur.3224","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in response inhibition, especially in socio-emotional contexts. A single aerobic exercise session has the potential to temporarily reduce such impairments as findings from neurotypical children support acute benefits of this exercise type for inhibitory control and emotion recognition. In children with ASD, we therefore aimed to investigate the effects of an aerobic exercise bout on response inhibition in an emotional Go/NoGo task and gaze fixation as possible mechanism underlying changes in performance. Using a cross-over design, 29 patients completed a 20-min aerobic exercise bout at moderate intensity on a cycling ergometer and a control condition in a randomized order. An emotional Go/NoGo task was administered before and after both experimental conditions. Eye-tracking was performed during the cognitive task to assess the duration of gaze fixation of eyes and mouth parts of faces expressing happy or sad emotions. The results support no beneficial effect of exercise on performance on the emotional Go/NoGo task. Instead, patients showed a greater decrease in accuracy on Go trials displaying happy faces in the exercise compared to the control condition. This change was associated with a more pronounced decrease in the fixation duration of the eyes for faces expressing either happy or sad emotions. In conclusion, while a single session of moderately intense aerobic exercise does not affect response inhibition, it temporarily aggravates ASD-specific deficits in the processing of and response to facial emotions.</p>","PeriodicalId":131,"journal":{"name":"Autism Research","volume":"17 9","pages":"1934-1943"},"PeriodicalIF":5.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/aur.3224","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Autism Research","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.3224","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in response inhibition, especially in socio-emotional contexts. A single aerobic exercise session has the potential to temporarily reduce such impairments as findings from neurotypical children support acute benefits of this exercise type for inhibitory control and emotion recognition. In children with ASD, we therefore aimed to investigate the effects of an aerobic exercise bout on response inhibition in an emotional Go/NoGo task and gaze fixation as possible mechanism underlying changes in performance. Using a cross-over design, 29 patients completed a 20-min aerobic exercise bout at moderate intensity on a cycling ergometer and a control condition in a randomized order. An emotional Go/NoGo task was administered before and after both experimental conditions. Eye-tracking was performed during the cognitive task to assess the duration of gaze fixation of eyes and mouth parts of faces expressing happy or sad emotions. The results support no beneficial effect of exercise on performance on the emotional Go/NoGo task. Instead, patients showed a greater decrease in accuracy on Go trials displaying happy faces in the exercise compared to the control condition. This change was associated with a more pronounced decrease in the fixation duration of the eyes for faces expressing either happy or sad emotions. In conclusion, while a single session of moderately intense aerobic exercise does not affect response inhibition, it temporarily aggravates ASD-specific deficits in the processing of and response to facial emotions.
期刊介绍:
AUTISM RESEARCH will cover the developmental disorders known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (or autism spectrum disorders – ASDs). The Journal focuses on basic genetic, neurobiological and psychological mechanisms and how these influence developmental processes in ASDs.