The benefit of exercise in inducing brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) functions in relation to cognition had been reported. Nevertheless, the ambiguity remains with regards to the types of exercise and the duration of exercise required for one to have beneficial effects. In this study, we aimed to analyse the effects of varying modes of exercises and the duration required to improve BDNF functions, specifically in the young adults. The types of exercises evaluated in the meta-analysis include (1) single bout of acute aerobic exercise, (2) repeated and frequent sessions of aerobic exercise (program exercise) over a course of several weeks, and (3) resistance training. Only a single bout of acute aerobic exercise (z=4.92, p=0.00001) is sufficient to cause an increase in BDNF following exercise intervention, while program exercise (z=1.02, p=0.31) and resistance training (z=0.92, p=0.36) demonstrated inconsistencies, some exhibited significant increase in BDNF levels while others exhibited similar results with the control groups.
ABSTRACT
Academic achievement may be influenced by catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT)
polymorphism. A common functional polymorphism of COMT, the rs4680 is consistently being
involved in the modulation of dopaminergic pathway and prefrontal cortex function which may
predominantly affect cognitive functions. A total of 197 female participants were recruited in this
study. The score of student’s grade point average (GPA) from the latest previous semester was
used as the measurement of academic achievement. The COMT polymorphism was genotyped
using tetra primer allele specific polymerase chain reaction. The findings indicated that there
were 8 (4.1 %), 72 (36.5 %), and 117 (59.4 %) participants harbouring Met/Met, Met/Val, and
Val/Val genotype for COMT polymorphism respectively. All the genotype distributions of
COMT polymorphism were consistent with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (χ2 = 0.495, p > 0.05).
The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) result demonstrated that participants bearing
Met/Met genotype had a better achievement in GPA as compared to the other COMT genotypes
(p = 0.001). These findings support evidence that the affective role of COMT polymorphism
might overwhelm cognitive abilities in measures of academic achievement like GPA.