Prolonged visual reaction time after strenuous endurance exercise: higher increment in male compared to female recreational runners

Purpose: This project aimed to evaluate the simple visual reaction time (SVRT) changes in runners of both sexes before and after a 21.1 km run. Methods: 20 male (age 35.3 ± 17.1 years, BMI 23.5 ± 3.3 kg/m2) and 20 female (age 32.2 ± 14.3 years, BMI 24.8 ± 4.2 kg/m2) amateur runners were evaluated 30 min before and after a half-marathon run under competing conditions. Subjects were asked to push an electronic switch at the lighting of a lamp for 11 trials randomly divided to one another between 1 and 10 s. Effort-perception data were collected through a Borg CR100 scale and SVRT data using an electronic chronometric device. A two-way RM ANOVA assessed the effects of exercise and biological sex on SVRT. Results: Borg effort data were similar (M: 82.4 ± 3.9 vs W: 84.7 ± 4.9 AU, p = 0.68). SVRT was lower in men than women before (M: 234.05 ± 3.33 vs F: 239.47 ± 6.1 ms, p < 0.05) but not after the race (M: 249.9 ± 7.18 vs F: 252.09 ± 16.93 ms, p = 0.7). Exercise lengthened the SVRT (M: + 7%; F: + 5%; p < 0.05). Response accuracy was greater in men both before and after exercise. Conclusion: Previous studies suggested exercise lengthened SVRT due to an exercise intensity-related reduced post-exercise cerebral oxygenation that decreases cognitive processes efficiency. In our results, this reduction seemed higher in men. The sex-related response accuracy might be due to different estrogen effects in brain areas implicated in information processing, motor performance, and attention and to different processing and attention focus strategies between the sexes or anticipatory strategies in females. © 2019, Springer-Verlag Italia S.r.l., part of Springer Nature