Overview
- After a 12‑week program, previously inactive adults showed a larger post‑exercise surge in brain‑derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) following a 15‑minute aerobic bout, while resting levels did not change.
- Participants trained with three cycling sessions per week plus a weekly strength session, with aerobic fitness tracked by VO2max testing about every six weeks.
- Improvements in VO2max correlated with the size of the BDNF spike, indicating that gains in cardiovascular fitness amplify the brain’s acute response to a single workout.
- Higher post‑exercise BDNF was associated with reduced activity in prefrontal regions during attention and inhibition tasks, consistent with enhanced neural efficiency and without clear effects on memory tasks.
- The research, led by UCL and published in Brain Research, drew expert praise alongside cautions about small sample size and differing reported participant counts (23 versus 30), underscoring the need for replication.