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Effect of Exercise Training on Middle Cerebral Artery Blood Flow Velocity: A Meta-Analytic Study

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

1 MSc of Exercise Physiology, Department of Sport Sciences, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran

2 Assistant Professor of Exercise Physiology, Department of Sport Sciences, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran

3 Associate Professor of Exercise Physiology, Department of Sport Sciences, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

Aim: was to determine the effect of exercise training, higher cardiopulmonary fitness and/or physical activity history on middle cerebral artery blood flow velocity (MCAv) in healthy subjects.
Methodology: Interventions investigated on healthy adults published in peer-reviewed journals up to July 2020 were searched in PubMed, Google Scholar, SID and Magiran databases.
Totally, 14 studies (including on 21 interventions) comprised from those with pre- and post-intervention design (7 studies) and others with ex post facto design (7 studies) fulfilled the eligibility criteria. The random effects model was used for analysis of the data reported as Difference in Means using CMA2 software. Moreover, correlations between the effect sizes of exercise training or physical fitness level on MCAv with subjects’ age, maximal oxygen consumption, mean arterial pressure, body weight, body mass index, resting heart rate, end-tidal carbon dioxide partial pressure and also with the duration of exercise training were assessed using simple random model meta-regression.
Results: Exercise training causes a non-significant increase of 0.569 cm/s in MCAv (p= 0.60) regardless of the subjects’ characteristics as well as the number of training weeks. Additionally, no significant correlations were observed in Meta regression assessments (p>0.05).
Conclusion: At present it is not possible to rely on the effects of exercise training, higher cardiopulmonary fitness and/or subjects’ exercise history to improve cerebral blood flow or prevent its reduction. However, more clinical trials are still warranted to be done in this area.

Keywords

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Sport Physiology
Volume 14, Issue 55
December 2022
Pages 17-48
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History
  • Receive Date: 16 October 2021
  • Revise Date: 25 January 2022
  • Accept Date: 05 February 2022
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