Acute Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Risky Decision Making and Reward Processing in Young Adults

Acute exercise is suggested to elicit benefits for cool executive function, but the sensitivity of its hot components, such as risky decision making, to exercise remains unclear. However, improvements in risky decision making are relevant due to its predictive value for engagement in unhealthy behaviors in young adults in particular. We investigated the acute effects of aerobic exercise on risky decision making, its underlying neurocognitive processes (i.e., reward processing) and response inhibition. 33 female and 27 male participants (aged 24.0 ± 2.9 years) were randomly allocated to an intervention group, who performed 20 min of moderately-intense running on a treadmill, and a control group, who watched a video. Before and after these sessions, a Go/NoGo task and an Iowa Gambling task were administered. The feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300 elicited by wins and losses during gambling were recorded with electroencephalography. We found no group differences in pre- to posttest changes in performance on the Go/NoGo task and Iowa Gambling task. However, there was a greater increase in the bias for infrequent losses in the intervention compared to the control group, accompanied by a change towards higher P300 amplitude and lower negativity of the FRN. In conclusion, an exercise session did not affect performance on cool and hot executive function tasks but altered the strategic approach in decision making. Exercise led to a better anticipation of outcomes of decisions and a higher maintenance of the feedback significance, which both contributed to a change towards choices that yield less frequent, larger losses.