Benefits of acute aerobic exercise to ameliorate craving and risky decision-making in individuals with methamphetamine use disorder

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to investigate the acute effects of aerobic exercise on craving and risky decision-making in individuals with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD).

Methods: Using a cross-over design, thirty male participants with MUD were recruited and completed a 30-minute moderate-intensity aerobic exercise task (75 %-80 % HRmax) and a sedentary control task in a randomized order. HR, RPE, and craving were measured before, during, and after each task. After the exercise task, risky decision-making was assessed using three cognitive tasks administered in a randomized order: the Delay Discounting Task (DDT, measuring impulsive decision-making), the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT, assessing myopic decision-making), and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART, evaluating risk-taking behavior). Three experimental paradigms can observe the change of MUD decision-making from three different dimensions, so as to further observe the effect of aerobic exercise on MUD decision-making function.

Results: Aerobic exercise significantly reduced craving compared to the sedentary task, with the greatest reductions observed during and immediately following exercise (all p < 0.05). Post-exercise, participants demonstrated improved decision-making performance, as evidenced by an increased area under the curve (AUC) in the DDT (p < 0.05, Cohen's d=0.49, 95 % CI [0.32,0.69]) and higher net scores in the IGT (p < 0.05, Cohen's d=0.52, 95 % CI [0.10,0.49]). However, no significant changes were found in BART scores or success rates between the two conditions.

Conclusion: Acute aerobic exercise effectively reduces craving and enhances decision-making performance, particularly in the domains of impulsive and myopic decision-making, in individuals with MUD. However, no significant effect was observed on risk-taking behavior. These findings suggest that aerobic exercise may serve as a promising non-pharmacological intervention for reducing craving and improving decision-making, potentially lowering recurrence risk in MUD patients. Furthermore, this study has limitations in the correlation between a single experiment and long-term benefits and gender.

Keywords: Aerobic exercise; Craving; Impulsivity; Methamphetamine use disorder; Risky decision-making.