High-intensity acute exercise impacts motor learning in healthy older adults

Healthy aging is associated with changes in motor sequence learning, with some studies indicating decline in motor skill learning in older age. Acute cardiorespiratory exercise has emerged as a potential intervention to improve motor learning, however research in healthy older adults is limited. The current study investigated the impact of high-intensity interval exercise (HIIT) on a subsequent sequential motor learning task. Twenty-four older adults (aged 55–75 years) completed either 20-minutes of cycling, or an equivalent period of active rest before practicing a sequential force grip task. Skill learning was assessed during acquisition and at a 6-hour retention test. In contrast to expectation, exercise was associated with reduced accuracy during skill acquisition compared to rest, particularly for the oldest participants. However, improvements in motor skill were retained in the exercise condition, while a reduction in skill was observed following rest. Our findings indicate that high-intensity exercise conducted immediately prior to learning a novel motor skill may have a negative impact on motor performance during learning in older adults. We also demonstrated that exercise may facilitate early offline consolidation of a motor skill within this population, which has implications for motor rehabilitation.