A pilot study investigating the effects of a single dose of a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink on memory in 8-10 year old children

Whyte, A. and Williams, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4452-671X (2015) A pilot study investigating the effects of a single dose of a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink on memory in 8-10 year old children. Nutrition, 31 (3). pp. 531-534. ISSN 0899-9007 doi: 10.1016/j.nut.2014.09.013

Abstract/Summary

Recent evidence from animal and adult human subjects has demonstrated potential benefits to cognition from flavonoid supplementation. This study aimed to investigate whether these cognitive benefits extended to a sample of school-aged children. Using a cross-over design, with a wash out of at least seven days between drinks, fourteen 8-10 year old children consumed either a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink or matched vehicle. Two hours after consumption, subjects completed a battery of five cognitive tests comprising the Go-NoGo, Stroop, Rey’s Auditory Verbal Learning Task, Object Location Task, and a Visual N-back. In comparison to vehicle, the blueberry drink produced significant improvements in the delayed recall of a previously learned list of words, showing for the first time a cognitive benefit for acute flavonoid intervention in children. However, performance on a measure of proactive interference indicated that the blueberry intervention led to a greater negative impact of previously memorised words on the encoding of a set of new words. There was no benefit of our blueberry intervention for measures of attention, response inhibition or visuo-spatial memory. While findings are mixed, the improvements in delayed recall found in this pilot study suggest that, following acute flavonoid-rich blueberry interventions, school aged children encode memory items more effectively.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-pure-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/38248
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.nut.2014.09.013
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Central Services Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
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