Exercise-Induced Modulation of Early Visual Evoked Responses: Chromatic and Achromatic Pathways

Prior studies investigating exercise-induced modulations of visual responses have beenconstrained by (1) generalized stimuli that cannot distinguish global mechanisms from pathway- specific effects, (2) stimulus-directed tasks that may conflate exercise costs with attentional effects, and (3) traditional EEG methods poorly matched to the noise profile of active exercise. Consequently, studies have found inconsistent effects of exercise linking arousal mostly to rodent physiology, rather than to the distinct visual pathways of primate vision. This present work recorded visual evoked potentials in response to stimuli designed to preferentially modulate the M, P, and K pathways, during states of rest, active exercise, and recovery, with a minimally demanding fixation task. Responses were recorded simultaneously with both tripolar EEG (tEEG) to improve signal-to-noise, and emulated traditional EEG (eEEG). Acute exercise produced three dissociable mechanisms of modulation: a global shortening of response latency across the visual system, a pathway-selective suppression of the achromatic primary peak amplitude, and a chromatic-specific amplitude suppression of the full on/off response window that was uniquely detected by tEEG, missed entirely by eEEG, and persisted into recovery. Further, tEEG provided a measure that not only reliably improves signal-to-noise, but is also reflective of a unique sampling of the underlying cortical response. To our knowledge, this work offers the first pathway- selective characterization of the acute effects of exercise on early cortical visual responses in humans, and the first evaluation of tEEG-based recording during active exercise.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctorate Degree

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Wise, Mackenzie Victoria

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Crognale, Michael A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Caplovitz, Gideon P
• MacNeilage, Paul
• Haigh, Sarah M
• Lescroart, Mark D
• Shen, Yantao

• EEG
• Electrophysiology
• Exercise
• VEPs
• Vision
• Visual Pathways

Language dc:language.iso

en_US, English

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://scholarwolf.unr.edu/handle/11714/11930

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarwolf.unr.edu:11714/11930