Dose–response effect of L-theanine on psychomotor speed, sustained attention, and inhibitory control: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study
| Autor: | Tharaka L. Dassanayake, Devasmitha Wijesundara, Chanaka N. Kahathuduwa, Vajira S. Weerasinghe |
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| Rok vydání: | 2022 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Nutritional Neuroscience. :1-9 |
| ISSN: | 1476-8305 1028-415X |
| Popis: | L-theanine is a non-protein-forming amino acid found in tea. Previous research shows high doses (100-400 mg) of L-theanine enhances attention, mainly by reducing mind wandering and distracter processing. We hypothesized that these indirect mechanisms could significantly improve the performance of low-level attentional tasks, whereas the relative contribution could be less in complex attentional tasks that require active, higher-order processing of target stimuli.To test this hypothesis, we conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled, counterbalanced, four-way crossover study in 32 healthy young adults, where we compared the effects of three doses of L-theanine (100, 200 and 400 mg) with a placebo (distilled water), administered before and 50 min after dosing, on three attentional tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery [viz. Reaction Time (RTI)-visuomotor speed, Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP)-sustained attention, and Stop Signal Task (SST)-inhibitory control]. Results were analyzed in dose × time repeated measures ANOVA models, with subsequent pairwise comparisons.Active doses significantly improved reaction times in the RTI (100-200 mg) and RVP (200-400 mg) tasks from baseline (Consistent with our hypothesis, these findings suggest that L-theanine significantly improves attention in simple visuomotor tasks, but not in more complex sustained attention tasks, or executive control tasks that require top-down inhibition of pre-active responses. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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