ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the key points of a neurocognitive model of the effects of acute exercise on the brain. This model, which is known as the reticular-activating hypofrontality or Reticular-Activating Hypofrontality (RAH) model, proposes a set of neural mechanisms for the cognitive and emotional changes that occur during exercise. The available data shows that performance on cognitive tasks that require substantial executive processes are impaired during acute exercise. The reticular activating process is responsible for the facilitation of relatively simple and automatic processes during and shortly after exercise. Cognitive psychology alone cannot explain the variability of mental performance during physical exercise. As a neural mechanism for implicit, stimulus-driven task performance during exercise catecholaminergic arousal is well established and relatively uncontroversial. The RAH model is an explanation for the psychological changes during a single bout of exercise. A fundamental concept of the RAH model is the distinction between the implicit and the explicit system.
