Effect of Increased Direct Electrical Stimulation of the Brain Along with Aerobic Exercise on Reconsolidation Processing of Explicit Motor Memory in Conditions with and Without Sleep

Reallocating boosted memory can lead to blocking or updating and re-boosting memory. Various factors affect the performance of memory reinforcement. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effect of aerobic exercise and electrical stimulation of the brain on memory reinforcement in sleepless and sleepless conditions.

45 young participants aged 20 to 25 years participated in the present quasi-experimental study conducted in 2019. Data were collected using demographic questionnaires, Petersburg sleep quality, Edinburgh excellence, Wechsler memory, chain reaction color matching time test, direct cranial electrical stimulation device and heart rate monitor. Subjects were selected based on inclusion criteria and then randomly assigned to three experimental and control groups. The subjects performed the chain color matching task in the acquisition stage (six blocks of 100 attempts), then the first group performed aerobic physical activity for 30 minutes, the second group did 15 minutes of electrical stimulation of the skull and 15 minutes of aerobic physical activity. All groups called the chain color matching task in a 100-item block 30 minutes after the training intervention and participated in the retest tests one and 48 hours later. The collected data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance, repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc test.

The results indicated that the subjects performed better in the third training block than the first and second training blocks (p ≥ 0.05). In the retention test after 1 hour, the aerobic exercise group had the best performance and the combined exercise group had the weakest performance (p ≥ 0.05). In performing the retention test after 48 hours, the combined exercise group had the best and the control group had the weakest performance.

According to the findings of the present study, aerobic physical activity and electrical stimulation of the brain to increase memory-enhancing performance are recommended.