Habitual Aerobic Exercise Is Associated with Reduced Negative Emotional Elicitation: An fNIRS Study

Objectives: Habitual exercise has been associated with a lower risk of emotional disorders and greater emotional stability. However, it remains unclear whether the beneficial effects of habitual aerobic exercise primarily emerge during the stage of emotion elicitation or during the subsequent regulation of negative emotions. The present study examined the association of habitual aerobic exercise with the intensity of negative emotion elicitation, the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies, and patterns of prefrontal activation measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Methods: Sixty-four participants were recruited, including individuals with habitual aerobic exercise (trained group, n = 32) and those without regular exercise habits (untrained group, n = 32). Participants completed an emotion regulation task consisting of four conditions: viewing neutral images, viewing negative images, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression. The comparison between neutral and negative viewing conditions was used to assess emotional elicitation, whereas comparisons between the regulation conditions and passive viewing of negative images were used to assess emotion regulation effects. Results: Compared with the untrained group, the trained group showed a lower emotional elicitation effect, accompanied by lower right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) activation during picture viewing at a more liberal threshold. The two groups showed similar reductions in negative emotional experience during emotion regulation, whereas individuals with habitual exercise showed a trend toward lower right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) activation during expressive suppression. Conclusions: Habitual aerobic exercise is associated with greater emotional stability, characterized by reduced initial emotional reactivity during emotion elicitation. Habitual exercisers may also show more efficient neural processing, reflected in distinct prefrontal activation patterns during emotional processing and regulation, although these exploratory findings require confirmation in future research.