Potential Mechanism of Physical Exercise to Improve Anxiety—Mediator and Modulation of Attentional Bias
Objective:To explore the mediating role of attentional bias in improving individual anxiety through physical exercise,as well as the regulatory mechanism of attentional bias com-ponents on this mediating effect.Methods:Fifty anxious individuals were enrolled and random-ly divided into exercise intervention or control groups.The exercise intervention group received aerobic exercise three times a week for 1 h each time for a total of 12 weeks,while the control group did not receive any exercise intervention.The dot-probe task was used to measure the at-tentional bias before and after the exercise intervention and the changes in the two attentional bi-as components(attentional engagement and attentional disengagement).By establishing a regu-lated mediation process model,it analyzed the mediation effect of attentional bias between phys-ical exercise and individual anxiety,as well as the regulatory mechanism of attentional engage-ment and attentional disengagement on this mediation process.Results:1)Physical exercise can reduce anxiety and reaction time under inconsistent conditions in the dot-probe task(P＜0.01),but the effect on reaction time under consistent and non-attentional allocation conditions is not significant(P＞0.05);2)physical exercise can reduce the attentional bias(P＜0.01)and difficul-ty in relieving negative emotions(P＜0.01),with no significant effect on attentional engagement(P＞0.05);3)attentional bias plays a partial mediating role between physical exercise and anxi-ety.Attentional engagement regulates the latter and direct pathways of this mediating process,while the attentional disengagement regulates all pathways of this mediating process.Conclu-sions:Physical exercise can reduce the negative attentional bias of anxious individuals,and mainly reduce the attentional disengagement.Attentional bias partially mediates the relationship between physical exercise and anxiety,and this mediation process is regulated by both attention-al bias components:attentional engagement and attentional disengagement.
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