Intensity-dependent acute aerobic exercise: Effect on reactive control of attentional functions in acclimatized lowlanders at high altitude

Human attentional function is sensitive to hypoxia. However, little is known about whether and how attentional function is altered after acute aerobic exercise at high altitude, especially for acclimatized lowlanders. In this study, we used the Attention Network Test (ANT) to measure alerting, orienting, and executive control functions and the Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT) with a different proportion of incongruent trials to investigate proactive and reactive control of executive function. We randomly divided the sample of 160 Tibetan lowlanders who had lived in the highlands for more than two years into four groups. Each of three groups performed 20 min of low-, moderate-, or high-intensity acute aerobic exercise, separately, and a control group watched a 20-min documentary. The ANT and SCWT were conducted before and after exercise or watching the documentary. The results indicated that the executive control effects of the three experimental groups significantly decreased and, in the posttest, the executive control effects of the high-intensity group were lower than those of the low-intensity group. Furthermore, the accuracy of the moderate- and high-intensity groups was increased significantly in the blocks containing 25% incongruent trials of SCWT task. These results suggest that the acute aerobic exercise at high altitude will improve the reactive control of attentional functions in acclimatized lowlanders, and the intensity may play an important role in the exercise-cognition interaction at high altitude.