Exercise-related changes in depressive symptoms and their association with anterior cingulate cortical thickness.

Overview

1. Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China
2. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Head and Skin, Ghent Experimental Psychiatry (GHEP) lab, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium
3. Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
4. Department of Psychiatry, NEUR Research Group, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZ Brussel), Laarbeeklaan 101, 1090, Brussels, Belgium
5. Department of Psychiatry, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, key Laboratory of Major Brain Disease and Aging Research (Ministry of Education), Psychiatric Center of Chongqing Medical University the First Affiliated Hospital Chongqing, China

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.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Data

Datasets cited

• openneuro:ds003799 — at OpenNeuro; found in “Data availability”

Data availability

All data used in the present study were publicly available from the OpenNeuro database (https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds003799/versions/1.0.0).

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

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Version 1, 28 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 9 authors, 5 keywords, 1 funder, 41 references.

Cite

This paper

Xia, Q., Yu, Q., Li, Y., You, Y., Mo, X., Zhang, Z., Baeken, C., Wei, L., & Wu, G.-R. (2026). Exercise-related changes in depressive symptoms and their association with anterior cingulate cortical thickness. International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP, 26(2), 100712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2026.100712

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