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2014-04-09 00:05:19
 绿茶被公认为对人体健康有许多的积极作用。现在，巴塞尔大学的研究人员首次表明，绿茶提取物能够增强认知功能，尤其是工作记忆。瑞士的研究发现对认知障碍的精神疾病，如老年痴呆症的治疗具有希望的临床意义。精神药理学杂志发表了他们的结果。 在过去，绿茶的主要成分已在癌症研究中被深入研究。最近，科学家们也被询问到饮料对人脑的积极影响。不同的研究将绿茶与有益于认知能力连接起来。然而，相关的绿茶这种认知的促进作用的神经机制仍然不明。 更好的记忆 在一项新的研究，巴塞尔大学医院的Christoph Beglinger教授和精神病学诊所的Stefan Borgwardt教授领导的研究团队发现，绿茶提取物提高了大脑的有效连接，意味着这个因果关系影响一个大脑区域施加在另一个上面。有效连接也能够改善实际的认知能力：在摄入绿茶提取物之后，工作记忆任务的学科测试显著改善。 这项研究让健康男性志愿者在解决工作记忆任务之前，接受含有几克绿茶提取物的软饮料。然后，科学家利用磁共振成像(MRI)分析了这些志愿者的大脑活动。 MRI显示壁层和大脑??额叶皮质之间的连接增加。这些神经元的发现与积极地改善参与者的任务绩效相关。 “我们的研究结果表明，绿茶可以提高大脑的短期突触可塑性， ” Borgwardt说。 临床意义 该研究结果提示有前途的临床意义：建模工作记忆加工过程中额叶和顶叶脑区之间的有效连接可能有助于评估绿茶的功效，适用于认知障碍的神经精神疾病，如老年痴呆症的治疗。 原文摘要： Green tea extract enhances parieto-frontal connectivity during working memory processing André Schmidt, Felix Hammann, Bettina W?lnerhanssen, Anne Christin Meyer-Gerspach, Jürgen Drewe, Christoph Beglinger, Stefan Borgwardt Rationale It has been proposed that green tea extract may have a beneficial impact on cognitive functioning, suggesting promising clinical implications. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this putative cognitive enhancing effect of green tea extract still remain unknown. Objectives This study investigates whether the intake of green tea extract modulates effective brain connectivity during working memory processing and whether connectivity parameters are related to task performance. Material and methods Using a double-blind, counterbalanced, within-subject design, 12 healthy volunteers received a milk whey-based soft drink containing 27.5 g of green tea extract or a milk whey-based soft drink without green tea as control substance while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Working memory effect on effective connectivity between frontal and parietal brain regions was evaluated using dynamic causal modeling. Results Green tea extract increased the working memory induced modulation of connectivity from the right superior parietal lobule to the middle frontal gyrus. Notably, the magnitude of green tea induced increase in parieto-frontal connectivity positively correlated with improvement in task performance. Conclusions 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. Modeling effective connectivity among frontal and parietal brain regions during working memory processing might help to assess the efficacy of green tea for the treatment of cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders such as dementia. |
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