Substance Use History and Exercise: Impact on Cognitive Benefit of Neuro-exergaming with iPACES

Objective: Research has been conducted looking into the effects of exergaming on cognitive functioning, specifically its effects on executive functioning. Exergaming is a relatively new intervention that has been introduced for patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as found early in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Exergaming is a combination of exercise and gaming directly linked in order to enhance the effects of exercise (Chan, Liu, Chan, and Tsoi, 2024). One emerging intervention is iPACES, an interactive pedal and play intervention (Anderson-Hanley et al., 2017). This neuro-exergaming intervention involves an exercise bike mixed with a memory task targeting executive functioning. In the past decade, Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and Substance Use Disorder have been adopted into the DSM-5 (Steffens, Wang, Manning, Holhauser 2024). The main deficit weakness in executive functioning which is seen in most AUD patients (Steffens, Wang, Manning, Holhauser 2024), as well as SUD patients (Volkow and Blanco, 2023). The aim of this study sees if executive functioning can be improved in participants that might be at risk of AUDs and SUDs after neuro-exergaming with iPACES. Participants and Methods: At the time of writing this abstract, ten Union College students as well as two older adults with an MCI have completed a single bout of neuro-exergaming with iPACES. The goal is to have 30 students and ten older adults by the end of the study. The comparison would be between any change in participants with or without suspected AUD or SUD. Measures of executive function (Digit Span Forwards and Backwards, Stroop C-B) were obtained pre - and post-pedaling sessions. Results: Complete analyses are yet to be conducted, but a preliminary analysis suggests limited relationship between executive function and AUD, but unexpectedly there was a strong relationship between attention (Stroop B change) and AUD (r = .57). There was no significant presence of SUD indicators in this sample to examine the impact of SUD. Conclusions: These results suggest that among college-aged students, exercise-related cognitive improvements, especially in attention, may be attenuated for those with AUD compared to controls. Following a single bout of neuro-exergaming greater benefit in attention was more likely observed among non -AUD students. Further data collection and analyses are planned. Future research could explore possible mechanisms that might be attenuating any effects.