To find out, in this study conducted at CIMCYC, we asked a group of trained cyclists to perform a task while pedaling- sometimes at an easy pace, other times at a very high intensity. The task was simple but demanding: participants had to focus on certain stimuli and ignore others. It's a way to test the flexibility of our brain and its ability to filter out distractions and stay focused on what matters.
While they performed this task, we recorded their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG) to analyze how the brain behaves under different levels of physical exertion. EEG is a non-invasive technique that captures the brain’s electrical signals through sensors placed on the scalp. This tool allows us to observe how the brain responds to different stimuli or tasks, giving us access to features of brain function that we wouldn’t be able to detect through behavior alone.
The brain resists, but reinvents itself
At the behavioral level, participants performed equally well whether they were pedaling at low or high intensity. But the brain told a different story. A key brain signal, typically associated with situations that require mental flexibility, disappeared during intense exercise. And when we applied more advanced analysis tools, we still couldn’t detect the typical patterns associated with that kind of flexibility under pressure.
What does this mean? That even if everything seems fine on the outside, the brain is juggling behind the scenes. It's likely reorganizing itself, using different routes to keep functioning without us noticing.
This study, conducted by the Human Brain and Cognition Lab – Cognitive and Affective Dynamics in collaboration with the Cambridge Consciousness and Cognition Lab of the University of Cambridge, invites us to look at how physical effort affects the brain with fresh eyes. And it suggests that extreme situations, such as intense exercise, could be a natural tool for studying the flexibility of the human mind.
Reference
Avancini, C., Ciria, L. F., Alameda, C., Palenciano, A. F., Canales-Johnson, A., Bekinschtein, T. A., & Sanabria, D. (2024). High-intensity physiological activation disrupts the neural signatures of conflict processing. Communications Biology, 7(1), 1-12.
Contact
Chiara Avancini chiara.avancini@ugr.es