Effects of Exercise Intervention on Sleep Quality and Emotional Problems in College Students With Depressive Symptoms

Depressive symptoms are highly prevalent among college students and are frequently accompanied by poor sleep quality, emotional disturbances, impaired executive function, and altered brain activity. Although physical exercise has been recognized as an effective non-pharmacological intervention for improving mental health, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these benefits remain unclear.

This study adopts an exploratory randomized controlled design consisting of two consecutive phases. In Phase I, participants will complete a single session of low-to-moderate intensity exercise to investigate immediate changes in emotional state, executive function, resting-state EEG, brain functional connectivity, and event-related potentials (ERP). In Phase II, the same participants will continue to participate in an 8-week exercise intervention to examine the effects of regular exercise on sleep quality, depressive symptoms, emotional problems, executive function, and neurophysiological characteristics.

Behavioral assessments, standardized psychological questionnaires, resting-state EEG, brain functional connectivity analysis, and ERP recordings will be performed before and after intervention. The study will also investigate whether the immediate response to acute exercise is associated with subsequent improvements following long-term exercise intervention, providing evidence for individualized exercise prescriptions and neurophysiological mechanisms of exercise in college students with depressive symptoms.

Inclusion criteria

• • Aged 18-23 years.

• Right-handed.
• Non-physical education major.
• No history of psychiatric disorders and no current or previous use of psychotropic medications, hypnotics, or other medications affecting the central nervous system.
• No history of traumatic brain injury or chronic physical diseases.
• No contraindications to physical exercise.
• Participants with a Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) score >13 will be classified as having depressive symptoms, whereas participants with a BDI-II score ≤13 will be classified as having no depressive symptoms.

Exclusion criteria

• Vigorous physical exercise, alcohol consumption, caffeine intake, or other stimulating behaviors within 24 hours before testing.

• Withdrawal from the study before completion of EEG recording or behavioral task assessments.
• Participants will be excluded from the final analysis if they fail to complete the required questionnaires or if the collected data do not meet predefined quality control criteria.