Study on the neurobiological mechanism of exercise intervention on students’ depression — based on theoretical mechanics teaching
Authors: Chen Shuyan , Xu Tingting 
Published: March 2023

Background

Depression is a common psychiatric disease, which has become one of the main causes of the loss of healthy life years. According to the survey, up to 50% of the patients with depression are school students. Depression mainly depends on drug therapy, psychological intervention and physical therapy. In recent years, exercise therapy has become an economical and environment-friendly intervention mode for depression due to its advantages of high compliance and few side effects. The teaching of theoretical mechanics can mobilize students’ enthusiasm for learning, promote their deep thinking and arouse their curiosity to explore the unknown, and have a certain role in relieving students’ mental pressure. Therefore, based on theoretical mechanics teaching, the study used exercise therapy to intervene in students’ depression, aiming to explore effective methods to improve students’ depression, and explore the changes in neurobiological mechanism of exercise intervention combined with theoretical mechanics teaching in the treatment of depression.

Subjects and Methods

60 students suffering from depression were randomly selected and divided into three groups, 20 students in each group. In group A, exercise combined with theoretical mechanics teaching was used for the intervention treatment of students with depression. In group B, only theoretical mechanics teaching was used for intervention treatment, while in group C, no intervention treatment was used. The three groups of experiments were performed with the same exercise intensity, exercise frequency, and exercise volume. Then record and sort out the main neurobiological mechanisms such as nerve cells and neurotransmitters that have changed during the treatment of depression. The experiment lasted for 12 weeks. In addition, the experiment used literature, observation and other experimental methods to collate and analyze data information.

Results

The study found that exercise combined with theoretical mechanics teaching has the best performance effect in treating students’ depression. The intervention intensity is usually 50% - 85% of the maximum heart rate, and the recommended exercise frequency is 3-5 times/week. The neurobiological mechanism of exercise intervention on students’ depression based on theoretical mechanics teaching is shown in Figure 1 below.Figure 1.

Neurobiological mechanism of exercise intervention on students’ depression based on theoretical mechanics teaching

As shown by the arrow in Figure 1, it has a promoting effect. According to research, the neurobiological mechanism of exercise combined with theoretical mechanics teaching in the treatment of depression is mainly manifested in regulating cytokine production, mediating microRNA expression, increasing neurotransmitter release, maintaining mitochondrial function, and reducing apoptosis of hippocampal neurons.

Conclusions

This study verified that exercise intervention combined with theoretical mechanical therapy has a certain relieving effect on students’ depression. At the same time, it was found in this treatment process that the neurobiological mechanism of exercise combined with theoretical mechanics in the intervention of depression was mainly to regulate the expression of cytokines and mediating microRNA, release of neurotransmitters, inhibit the inflammatory pathway, maintain the mitochondrial function, and reduce the apoptosis of hippocampal neurons.

Acknowledgements

The research is supported by: “Science and Technology Project of China Railway Corporation, China (Grant No. 1341324011)”.