Authors
Qi Xia, Qing Yu, Yuchen Li, Yuanpeng You, Xiaoqi Mo, Zijing Zhang, Chris Baeken, Luqing Wei, Guo-Rong Wu
Published in
International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP. Volume 26. Issue 2. Pages 100712. Epub Aug 08, 2026.
Abstract
Aerobic exercise is associated with reduced depressive symptoms, but the neurobiological processes supporting this effect remain incompletely understood. We investigated whether short-term aerobic exercise reduces depressive symptoms in healthy young adults and whether such reduction is related to cortical structural change and neurotransmitter-receptor organization. Forty-eight participants completed a two-week aerobic running intervention and a two-week control period, with depressive symptoms and structural MRI assessed at baseline, week 2 and week 4. Aerobic exercise significantly reduced depressive symptoms relative to the control period. Across individuals, greater symptom reduction was associated with larger increases in anterior cingulate cortical thickness, an association observed only during the active intervention. The cortical map of this symptom-thickness association showed selective spatial correspondence with normative distributions of serotonergic 5-HT1A, 5-HT1B, 5-HT2A and 5-HT4 receptors, and the glutamatergic mGluR5 receptor, and this correspondence was observed only during the exercise period. These results indicate that short-term aerobic exercise is associated with changes in depressive symptoms and anterior cingulate structure. They also provide a neurobiologically informed context for understanding these exercise-related changes.
PMID:
42604120
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 16 Aug 2026.
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