Sports in Natural Environment, Sports in Urban Environment: An fMRI Study about Stress and Attention/Awareness
Metadata
Show full item recordEditorial
Journal of Sports Science and Medicine
Materia
Outdoor exercise fMRI Stress Attention/awareness Hair cortisol
Date
2021-10-01Referencia bibliográfica
Antonio Baena-Extremera... [et al.] (2021) Sports in Natural Environment, Sports in Urban Environment: An fMRI Study about Stress and Attention/Awareness. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (20), 789 - 798. [https://doi.org/10.52082/jssm.2021.789]
Abstract
This study aimed to explore, on one side, the differences between
a group of athletes exercising outdoor (OG) and another group
exercising indoor (IG) in stress and awareness, and, on the other
side, between-group differences in the fMRI activations during
the visualization of natural environment images versus urban images.
In addition, we aimed to analyze the associations between
the resulting task-related brain activations and stress and attention-
awareness in each group separately. All the participants (N
= 49; OG = 21, 11 females, mean age = 40, SD = 6.49; and IG =
25, 11 females, mean age = 40; 6.19) underwent an fMRI scan
and completed the Perceived Stress Scale and the Mindful Attention
Awareness Scale. Besides, we collected a sample of hair cortisol.
Participants viewed three types of images: water nature,
green nature and urban images. Two-sample t-test with corrected
p=0.001 values were carried out. Further correlational analyses
were performed to estimate the associations between task-related
brain activations and our pyscho-emotional measures in each
group. Fisher tests were used to explore for potential betweengroup
differences in the correlational indexes. In OG, compared
to IG, we found a higher activation of the middle occipital cortex
and a cluster comprising the supplementary motor area (SMA),
the premotor cortex and the pre-SMA while viewing green nature
images versus urban images. In OG, more than in IG, the higher
activation of the left SMA cluster negatively correlated with perceived
stress, while in the IG, more than in OG, the higher premotor
cortex activation was positively related to the total score
on MAAS. No significant association was found with the hair cortisol
levels. Exercising outdoor would relate to better psychoemotional
outcomes, also for athletes. On the other side, the exposition
to green nature led to higher activation of brain areas related
to motor planning, but also to emotion regulation and emotional
response.