Acute Effects Of Exercise On Craving And Cognition In Heroin-dependent Individuals: Resistance Versus Aerobic Exercise.

PURPOSE: High intensity exercise is a non-invasive approach beneficial for the recovery of heroin-dependent individuals (HDI), including resistance and aerobic exercises. But, it’s unclear if there exist differences between these two forms in alleviating craving and cognitive function in HDI.This study aims to explore differential effects of two methods on craving, attentional bias, and executive functions among HDI, using an acute exercise paradigm. METHODS: This study used a within-subjects cross-over design and recruited 26 male HDI (32.04 ± 5.00 years). They were assigned to complete a 30-minute acute high-intensity resistance exercise tasks (75%-80% Max Heart Rate) involving seated chest press, seated leg press, and high pulldown;acute aerobic exercise tasks (75%-80% 1-RM) composed of a 5-minute warm-up and cool-down, 20-minute power cycling, and a 30-minute sedentary control task, with a one-week washout period between tasks. Pre-exercise, at 10-minute and 50-minute post-exercise, the Visual Analog Scale,dot-probe task, Stroop task, n-back task, and More-Odd task were used to respectively assess craving, attentional bias, inhibitory control, updating, and shifting functions. RESULTS: During exercise, post-exercise and 50-minute post-exercise, both resistance and aerobic exercise tasks showed notably lower craving than the control group (p < 0.01).After 10-minute post-exercise, both the attentional bias and inhibitory scores for the resistance exercise task (-5.11 ± 11.91;87.07 ± 25.29) and the aerobic exercise task (-2.72 ± 8.35;81.24 ± 21.37) were notably lower than those for the sedentary control task (7.26 ± 16.44; 106.48 ± 28.85, p < 0.01). However, no differences were observed in the updating and shifting tasks among the three tasks (p > 0.05). Interestingly, no notable variations were found in attentional bias and inhibitory control scores between high-intensity resistance exercise and aerobic exercise tasks(p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Acute high intensity resistance and aerobic exercise both demonstrate positive improvement benefits in craving, attentional bias, and executive functions, particularly in inhibitory function among HDI. However, the benefits derived from these exercises lack specificity.