Different studies were able to link green tea to beneficial effects on the cognitive performance. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this cognitive enhancing effect of green tea remained unknown. The recent findings show promising implications for the treatment of cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders such as dementia, according to a press release.
“Our findings suggest that green tea might increase the short-term synaptic plasticity of the brain,” researcher Stefan Borgwardt said in a statement.
For the study, researchers recruited healthy male volunteers to try a soft drink containing several grams of green tea extract before they solved working memory tasks. They then analyzed how this affected the brain activity of the men using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).