J G Tieman | PubMed Health

PubMed2001

Acoustic startle eyeblink response after acute exercise.

The acoustic startle eyeblink response (ASER) is a useful probe for investigating central nervous system activity associated with emotional responses to aversive and appetitive stimuli. Though the ASER is sensitive to change in emotional arousal, the effect of acute physical exertion on ASER has not been reported. We examined changes in ASER amplitude and latency in 26 healthy young men (24+/-5 yr) after 20 min of cycling at light and hard intensities (40% and 75% VO2peak) and after 20 min of quiet rest. Mixed model ANCOVA, controlling precondition scores, indicated no effects for ASER amplitude or latency in either sedentary or active participants (p>.10). Our findings indicate that possible effects of acute exercise on potentiated startle or ASER responses elicited by positive or negative foreground stimuli should not be expected to be confounded by an altered baseline acoustic startle eyeblink response when measured in healthy young men.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1991

Estimates of Type A behavior do not predict perceived exertion during graded exercise.

Earlier studies have concluded that exercise tolerance during graded stress testing is overestimated in males showing the Type A Behavior Pattern (TABP) because of high motivation and suppressed ratings of perceived exertion (RPE). However, the studies used the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) to assess TABP and employed exercise protocols that were unstandardized or uninterpretable for clinical prescription. Because the JAS lacks validity for predicting the criterion Structured Interview (SI) for TABP, the usefulness of concurrent self-report estimates of TABP for predicting RPE during standard exercise testing warrants additional study. During clinical treadmill testing of 86 asymptomatic Caucasian men (45 +/- 9 yr), we examined three standard estimates of TABP (JAS, Bortner, Framingham) as predictors of: 1) the covariance (RPE') of RPE (Borg Category Scale) with VO2 (ml.kg-1.min-1) during 5 min of graded walking (5.47 km.h-1, 2.25%.min-1); 2) VO2 and RPE (11.6 +/- 2.2) at a preferred level of exertion (approximately 65% +/- 10% VO2PEAK); 3) VO2PEAK and RPE at VO2PEAK. Multiple linear regression analyses found no relations (P greater than 0.10) between estimates of TABP and treadmill responses. Discriminant analyses of Type A and Type B groups formed from tertiles consistent with population norms showed no differences (P greater than 0.01) for RPE of treadmill performance. Our findings question prior reports of RPE suppression associated with TABP estimates. We conclude that practically implementable estimates of TABP do not offer useful information for clinical predictions of RPE, preferred exertion level, or VO2PEAK in asymptomatic middle-aged Caucasian men.

Adult↗