Is 10 Min Enough After Mental Fatigue? Subjective, Cognitive, and Prefrontal Hemodynamic Responses to 10- and 20-Min Moderate-Intensity Aerobic Exercise

This study aims to examine whether short bouts of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can facilitate recovery from experimentally induced mental fatigue and whether the duration of exercise influences the magnitude of recovery. College students will first complete a prolonged 45-minute Stroop task to induce mental fatigue. They will then be randomly assigned to one of four conditions consisting of 10 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, 20 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, 10 minutes of seated eyes-closed rest, or 20 minutes of seated eyes-closed rest. Mental fatigue will be assessed using subjective ratings, Stroop task performance, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Subjective mental fatigue will be measured using a visual analogue scale. Cognitive performance will be assessed using reaction time and accuracy during congruent and incongruent Stroop trials. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy will be used to examine changes in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration across predefined prefrontal regions of interest. The primary objective is to determine whether moderate-intensity aerobic exercise produces greater recovery from mental fatigue than an equivalent period of passive rest and whether a longer exercise duration provides additional benefits. It is expected that both 10- and 20-minute aerobic exercise will reduce subjective mental fatigue and improve cognitive performance relative to the corresponding rest conditions. The 20-minute exercise condition is expected to produce a more pronounced recovery in cognitive performance and prefrontal hemodynamic responses than the 10-minute exercise condition. The study is intended to provide evidence regarding the duration-dependent effects of brief aerobic exercise on subjective, behavioral, and neural indicators of recovery from mental fatigue. This preregistration was prepared as a course exercise to simulate a prospective preregistration before data collection.