The relationship between neurotransmission-related amino acid blood concentrations and neuropsychological performance following acute exercise

Abstract

Amino acid neurotransmitters, including glutamate, phenylalanine, tyrosine, alanine, and glycine, underlie the majority of the excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission in the nervous system, and acute exercise has been shown to modulate their concentrations. We aimed to determine whether any correlation exists between the above-mentioned amino acid blood concentrations and the neuropsychological performance after an acute exercise intervention. Sixty basketball players were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: exercise or inactive resting. All participants underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment and blood samples were taken on a Guthrie card before and after the end of the experimental conditions. Amino acid blood concentrations were significantly elevated and cognitive performance significantly improved post-exercise on specific neuropsychological assessments. Significant intervention × group interaction effects were apparent for Trail Making Test part-B [F(1,58) = 20.46, p < .0001, η² = .26] and Digit Span Backwards [F(1,58) = 15.47, p < .0001, η² = .21] neuropsychological assessments. Additionally, regression analysis indicated that tyrosine accounted for 38.0% of the variance in the Trail Making Test part-A test. These results suggest that elevated blood concentrations of neurotransmission-related amino acids are associated with improved neuropsychological performance after a single bout of high-intensity exercise.

Keywords:

• Amino acids
• attention
• cognition
• exercise
• neurotransmission

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are expressed to the athletes for their willing participation. We gratefully thank the coaches of the teams for their significant contribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).