Effects Of Aerobic Exercise On Cognitive Function Of Hospitalized Depressive Patients

Studies on the mechanism of depression suggest that relief of depression may be related to the improvement of hippocampal neurogenesis.It has indeed been found in animal studies and in studies of healthy individuals that exercise can improve level of hippocampal neurogenesis or promote cognitive functions related to hippocampal neurogenesis,but this effect has not been proven in the depressed population.Therefore,more empirical studies are needed to explore whether exercise can improve the cognitive function related to hippocampal neurogenesis in depressed individuals.Now,it is not possible to directly measure the neurogenesis in living humans.But,It has been confirmed that some cognitive tests are sensitive to hippocampal neurogenesis,so changes in hippocampal neurogenesis can be predicted by these tests.On the other hand,a large number of studies have proved that exercise can effectively alleviate the symptoms of depression,but few studies have explored the effects of exercise on cognitive function in depressed patients.This study employed an aerobic exercise intervention in hospitalized depressive patients,and set up an intervention group and a control group.The "pre-test and post-test" study design was used to test effects of exercise intervention on cognitive function of hospitalized depressive patients.By analyzing the effects of exercise intervention in two types of cognitive tests,this paper discussed whether the improvement of cognitive function by exercise is specific to hippocampal neurogenesis.We assumed that exercise can improve cognitive function,but have no effect on depressive symptoms.The cognitive tasks are divided into two types.First type is sensitive to hippocampal neurogenesis,and they are Delayed matching to samples task(DMS),Mnemonic similarity task(MST).The second type is sensitive to hippocampus,and include Pattern recognition memory task(PRM),Spatial recognition memory task(SRM)and Paired associates learning task(PAL).PAL has been proved completely independent in hippocampal neurogenesis.The Beck Depression Inventory-?(BDI-?)to assess changes in depressive symptoms.We use Motor screening task(MOT)and Rapid visual information processing(RVIP)to control the effects of basic operating ability and persistence of attention on cognitive performance.And we use The Perceived stress scale(PSS)and Beck anxiety inventory(BAI)to control effects of stress and anxiety on cognitive performance.The results showed that:(1)Exercise intervention effectively improved cognitive performance on hippocampal neurogenesis-dependent cognitive tests.(2)Exercise intervention didn't change performance on hippocampal neurogenesis-independent cognitive tests.(3)Exercise intervention had no significant effect on depressive symptoms.It proved that our exercise intervention improved cognitive function in hospitalized depressive patients.