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Published on: November 2, 2015
Effects of Intermittent Hypoxia and Electrical Muscle Stimulation on Cognitive and Physiological Metrics
Elizaveta Reganova1,2, Ksenia Solovyeva2,3, Dmitriy Buyanov4,5
1Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and System Engineering (DIBRIS)б, University of Genoa, 16146 Genoa, Italy.
Objectives:
This study describes the effects of interval hypoxic training and electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) technology on human productivity with the following metrics: biochemical indices, cognitive abilities, changes in oxygenated (HbO) and deoxygenated (Hb) hemoglobin concentrations over the prefrontal cortex, and functional connectivity via electroencephalography (EEG).
Methods:
All measurements according to the described technology were made before the start of training and one month later, right after it ended. The study involved middle-aged Indo-European men. Specifically, there were 14, 15, and 18 participants in the control, hypoxic, and EMS groups, respectively.
Results:
EMS training improved reactions and nonverbal memory but decreased attention scores. Functional connectivity decreased in the EMS group while it increased in the hypoxic group. A result of the interval normobaric hypoxic training (IHT) was significantly improved contextual memory, with a p-value = 0.08.
Conclusions:
It was found that EMS training is more likely to cause stress on the body than positively affect cognitive functions. At the same time, interval hypoxic training can be considered a promising direction for increasing human productivity. The data obtained during the study can also help in the timely diagnosis of insufficient or overestimated indicators of biochemistry.
