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Citation
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Verschueren J, Tassignon B, Proost M, Teugels A, Van Cutsem J, Roelands B, Verhagen E, Meeusen R. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub. |
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Abstract
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PURPOSE: Mental fatigue impairs psychomotor skill performance by affecting visuomotor reaction time, accuracy and decision-making. Recently, neurocognitive functional performance tests (FPT) have been developed that integrate these outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of mental fatigue on traditional and neurocognitive FPTs in healthy adults.
METHODS: Fourteen volunteers (four women; mean ± SD; age = 22 ± 1 years; height = 176.9 ± 8.4 cm; weight = 69.7 ± 10.4 kg) participated in a randomized counterbalanced cross-over design. A 100% incongruent Stroop Color Word Test of 90 minutes was used to induce mental fatigue and the control task encompassed watching a 90-minute documentary. Traditional FPTs comprised a single leg hop for distance (SLH), countermovement jump (CMJ) and Y-balance test (YBT), while the neurocognitive FPT encompassed the reactive balance test (RBT). All FPTs were evaluated pre-post the 90 min task. Mental fatigue was assessed using the Stroop task, M-VAS scale and the Eriksen-Flanker task.
RESULTS: Mental fatigue was successfully induced, as shown by a significant increase in M-VAS (p<0.001), with no decrease in performance on the Stroop and Eriksen-Flanker task. No interaction effect of mental fatigue was found for the YBT, SLH and CMJ. For the RBT accuracy, a significant interaction effect of mental fatigue and time was observed (p=0.024), with participants performing significantly worse when mentally fatigued. No interaction effect or main effect of condition and time was observed when considering the effect of mental fatigue on visuomotor reaction time in the RBT.
CONCLUSION: Mental fatigue negatively affects a neurocognitive FPT, indicated by a decreased accuracy in response to visual stimuli in the RBT. Traditional FPTs remained unaffected by mental fatigue.
Language: en |