Although acute aerobic exercise benefits different aspects of emotional functioning, it is unclear how exercise influences the processing of emotional stimuli and which brain mechanisms support this relationship. We assessed the influence of acute aerobic exercise on valence biases (preferential processing of negative/positive pictures) by performing source reconstructions of participants’ brain activity after they viewed emotional scenes.

Twenty-four healthy participants (12 women) were tested in a randomized and counterbalanced design that consisted of three experimental protocols, each lasting 30 min: low-intensity exercise (Low-Int); moderate-intensity exercise (Mod-Int); and a seated rest condition (REST). After each of the protocols, participants viewed negative and positive pictures, during which event-related magnetic fields were recorded. Analyses revealed that exercise strongly impacted the valence processing of emotional scenes within a widely distributed left hemispheric spatio-temporal cluster between 190 and 310 ms after picture onset. Brain activity in this cluster showed that a negativity bias at REST (negative > positive picture processing) diminished after the Low-Int condition (positive = negative) and even reversed to a positivity bias after the Mod-Int condition (positive > negative). Thus, acute aerobic exercise of low and moderate intensities induces a positivity bias which is reflected in early, automatic processes.

尽管急性有氧运动有益于情绪功能的各个方面，但尚不清楚运动如何影响情绪刺激的处理以及哪些大脑机制支持这种关系。我们通过观察参与者的情绪场景后对其大脑活动进行源重构，评估了急性有氧运动对化合价偏倚（负/正图片的优先处理）的影响。

24名健康参与者（12名女性）接受了随机和平衡设计的测试，包括三个实验方案，每个方案持续30分钟：低强度运动（低强度）；低强度运动（低强度）；低强度运动（低强度）。中强度运动（Mod-Int）; 以及坐着的休息状态（REST）。在每种方案之后，参与者都观看了负片和正片，并记录了与事件相关的磁场。分析显示，运动对图片发作后190到310毫秒之间广泛分布的左半球时空簇内情绪场景的价态处理有很大影响。该集群中的大脑活动表明REST的负向偏见（负> 低Int条件（正=负）后减弱（正图像处理），甚至在Mod-Int条件（正>负）后反转为正偏差。因此，低强度和中强度的有氧运动会引起积极的偏见，这反映在早期的自动过程中。