A revealing study published in the journal Neurology suggests that drinking two cups of hot chocolate daily for a month improves cognitive test scores and increases blood flow to the brain. The study authors, from Harvard Medical School (USA) and the National Institute on Aging, worked with adults over 73 years of age with no evidence of dementia. The increase in blood flow in certain areas of the brain at the end of the study was up to 8.3% in people in whom decreased cerebral irrigation had been detected at the beginning of the experiment. In addition, in these individuals , the response speed of working memory increased , a type of memory nicknamed the "blackboard of the mind" that allows certain information (digits, words, etc.) to be retained for a short period of time.
"We have learned a lot about blood flow in the brain and its effect on intellectual abilities," says Farzaneh A. Sorond, a Harvard Medical School researcher leading the study. "As different areas of the brain require more energy to perform their tasks, they also need more blood flow." This relationship, called "neurovascular coupling," may play a key role in diseases such as Alzheimer's.
