Cognitive Functioning and Heat Strain: Performance Responses and Protective Strategies
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REVIEW ARTICLE
Cognitive Functioning and Heat Strain: Performance Responses and Protective Strategies Cyril Schmit1 • Christophe Hausswirth1 • Yann Le Meur1,2,3 • Rob Duffield4
Ó Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
Abstract Despite the predominance of research on physical performance in the heat, many activities require high cognitive functioning for optimal performance (i.e. decision making) and/or health purposes (i.e. injury risk). Prolonged periods of demanding cognitive activity or exercise-induced fatigue will incur altered cognitive functioning. The addition of hot environmental conditions will exacerbate poor cognitive functioning and negatively affect performance outcomes. The present paper attempts to extract consistent themes from the heat–cognition literature to explore cognitive performance as a function of the level of heat stress encountered. More specifically, experimental studies investigating cognitive performance in conditions of hyperthermia, often via the completion of computerised tasks (i.e. cognitive tests), are used to better understand the relationship between endogenous thermal load and cognitive performance. The existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between hyperthermia development and cognitive performance is suggested, and highlights core temperatures of *38.5 °C as the potential ‘threshold’ for hyperthermia-induced negative cognitive performance. & Cyril Schmit [email protected] 1
Laboratory of Sport, Expertise and Performance (EA 7370), Research Department, French National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (INSEP), 11, Avenue du Tremblay, 75 012 Paris, France
2
Medical Department, AS Monaco Football Club, Monaco, Monaco
3
Laboratory LAMHESS (EA6312), University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, Nice, France
4
Sport and Exercise Discipline Group, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Moore Park, NSW, Australia
From this perspective, interventions to slow or blunt thermal loads and protect both task- and hyperthermia-related changes in task performances (e.g. cooling strategies) could be used to great benefit and potentially preserve cognitive performance during heat strain.
Key Points An inverted U-shaped response exists for cognitive performance as related to increasing hyperthermia. Initial increases in core temperature up to *38.5 °C improve cognitive functioning, but after *39.0 °C impairments start to appear as a function of task complexity. The heat–cognition interaction may be explained as an inability to deal with concomitant heat- and taskrelated constraints. Nascent reports suggest this inverted U-shaped pattern is modifiable using typical strategies (e.g. cooling, hydration) so as to promote heat-related cognitive enhancement and reduce the debilitative effect of heat strain on cognitive performance.
1 Introduction: Cognitive Performance in the Heat The interaction between exercise in the heat and performance decrement (compared with temperate conditions) is often presented in a dose-response fashion, with gr
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