Effects of heat stress and dehydration on cognitive function in elite female field hockey players

MacLeod, H, Cooper, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5219-5020, Bandelow, S, Malcolm, R ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3494-3835 and Sunderland, C ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7484-1345, 2018. Effects of heat stress and dehydration on cognitive function in elite female field hockey players. BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 10 (1): 12. ISSN 2052-1847

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Abstract

Background: It has previously been suggested that heat exposure and hypohydration have negative effects on cognitive performance, which may impact upon sporting performance. The aim of the present study was to examine the independent effects of heat stress and hypohydration on cognitive performance in elite female field hockey players.

Methods: Eight unacclimatised elite field hockey players (age: 22 ± 3 y; height: 1.68 ± 0.05 m; body mass: 63.1 ± 6.0 kg) completed a cognitive test battery before and after 50 min of field hockey specific exercise on a treadmill in four experimental trials; two in hot conditions (33.3 ± 0.1 °C), and two in moderate (16.0 ± 3.0 °C), both with and without ad libitum water intake.

Results: On the visual search test, participants were faster overall in the heat (1941 vs. 2104 ms, p = 0.001). Response times were quicker in the heat on the Sternberg paradigm (463 vs. 473 ms, p = 0.024) and accuracy was improved (by 1.9%, p = 0.004). There was no effect of hydration status on any of the markers of cognitive function.

Conclusions: Overall, the findings suggest that in elite field hockey players exposure to heat enhances response times and/or accuracy on a battery of cognitive function tests. However, hypohydration does not appear to affect cognitive performance in elite field hockey players.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation
Creators:	MacLeod, H., Cooper, S., Bandelow, S., Malcolm, R. and Sunderland, C.
Publisher:	BioMed Central
Date:	19 June 2018
Volume:	10
Number:	1
ISSN:	2052-1847
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1186/s13102-018-0101-9 DOI 101 Publisher Item Identifier
Rights:	© The Author(s). 2018. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise state
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	19 Jun 2018 13:25
Last Modified:	05 Apr 2019 13:32
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/33876

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