Acute exercise and cognition: A review with testable questions for future research into cognitive enhancement with blood flow restriction

Abstract

Blood flow restriction, in combination with low load/intensity exercise, has consistently been shown to increase both muscle size and strength. In contrast, the effects of blood flow restricted exercise on cognition have not been well studied. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is 1) to review the currently available literature investigating the impact of blood flow restricted exercise on cognition and 2) to provide some hypotheses for how blood flow restriction might provide an additive stimulus for augmenting specific cognitive domains above exercise alone. Given the lack of research in this area, the effects of blood flow restricted exercise on cognition are still unclear. We hypothesize that blood flow restricted exercise could potentially enhance several cognitive domains (such as attention, executive functioning, and memory) through increases in lactate production, catecholamine concentration, and PGC-1α expression. We review work that suggests that blood flow restriction is not only a beneficial strategy to improve musculoskeletal function but could also be a favorable method for enhancing multiple domains of cognition. Nonetheless, it must be emphasized this is a hypothesis that currently has only minimal experimental support, and further investigations in the future are necessary to test the hypothesis.

Keywords: Attention; Brain-derived neurotrophic factor; Executive function; Lactate; Memory.