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Prolonged visual reaction time after strenuous endurance exercise: higher increment in male compared to female recreational runners

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Abstract

Purpose

This project aimed to evaluate the simple visual reaction time (SVRT) changes in runners of both sexes before and after a 21.1 km run.

Methods

20 male (age 35.3 ± 17.1 years, BMI 23.5 ± 3.3 kg/m2) and 20 female (age 32.2 ± 14.3 years, BMI 24.8 ± 4.2 kg/m2) amateur runners were evaluated 30 min before and after a half-marathon run under competing conditions. Subjects were asked to push an electronic switch at the lighting of a lamp for 11 trials randomly divided to one another between 1 and 10 s. Effort-perception data were collected through a Borg CR100 scale and SVRT data using an electronic chronometric device. A two-way RM ANOVA assessed the effects of exercise and biological sex on SVRT.

Results

Borg effort data were similar (M: 82.4 ± 3.9 vs W: 84.7 ± 4.9 AU, p = 0.68). SVRT was lower in men than women before (M: 234.05 ± 3.33 vs F: 239.47 ± 6.1 ms, p < 0.05) but not after the race (M: 249.9 ± 7.18 vs F: 252.09 ± 16.93 ms, p = 0.7). Exercise lengthened the SVRT (M: + 7%; F: + 5%; p < 0.05). Response accuracy was greater in men both before and after exercise.

Conclusion

Previous studies suggested exercise lengthened SVRT due to an exercise intensity-related reduced post-exercise cerebral oxygenation that decreases cognitive processes efficiency. In our results, this reduction seemed higher in men. The sex-related response accuracy might be due to different estrogen effects in brain areas implicated in information processing, motor performance, and attention and to different processing and attention focus strategies between the sexes or anticipatory strategies in females.

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Abbreviations

SVRT:

Simple visual reaction time

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine, and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, 37121, Verona, Italy

    Alessandro Gentilin, Kristina Skroce, Federico Schena & Cantor Tarperi

  2. Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2H9, Canada

    Alessandro Gentilin

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  1. Alessandro Gentilin
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Correspondence to Alessandro Gentilin.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (Ethics Board of the Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences at the University of Verona (prot. No. 165038)) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Gentilin, A., Skroce, K., Schena, F. et al. Prolonged visual reaction time after strenuous endurance exercise: higher increment in male compared to female recreational runners. Sport Sci Health 16, 169–176 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-019-00593-7

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