Cognitive Benefits of Green Tea Seen on Brain Scan
After consuming a drink containing green tea extract, a group of men experienced a boost in connectivity between the parietal and the frontal cortex of the brain. The enhanced connectivity, researchers said, correlated positively with an improvement in working memory.
Their study was published recently in the online Psychopharmacology.
“Our findings provide first evidence for the putative beneficial effect of green tea on cognitive functioning, in particular, on working memory processing at the neural system level by suggesting changes in short-term plasticity of parieto-frontal brain connections,” the researchers wrote.
They added that the results "further suggest that the assessment of effective connectivity among frontal and parietal brain regions during working memory processing may provide a promising tool to assess the efficacy of green tea or other compounds for the treatment of cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders such as dementia.”
To test the impact of green tea extract on cognitive functioning, Swiss researchers assigned 12 healthy male volunteers to consume a whey-based soft drink containing 27.5 grams of green tea extract or a similar drink without the extract. Researchers used functional MRI to evaluate how the drinks affected brain activity while study participants performed tasks involving working memory.
Participants whose drink included green tea extract performed significantly better on working memory tests than participants who did not receive the green tea extract, researchers found. The fMRI scans revealed increased connectivity from the right superior parietal lobule to the middle frontal gyrus of the brain.
“Our findings suggest that green tea might increase the short-term synaptic plasticity of the brain,” said researcher Stefan Borgwardt, MD, PhD, clinical psychiatrist and professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland.
—Jolynn Tumolo
References
2. Green tea boosts your brain [press release]. Washington, DC; Eurekalert; April 7, 2014.
