title: Chewing-gum flavor affects measures of global complexity of multichannel EEG.
abstract: Global complexity of spontaneous brain electric activity was studied before and after chewing gum without flavor and with 2 different flavors. One-minute, 19-channel, eyes-closed electroencephalograms (EEG) were recorded from 20 healthy males before and after using 3 types of chewing gum: regular gum containing sugar and aromatic additives, gum containing 200 mg theanine (a constituent of Japanese green tea), and gum base (no sugar, no aromatic additives); each was chewed for 5 min in randomized sequence. Brain electric activity was assessed through Global Omega (Omega)-Complexity and Global Dimensional Complexity (GDC), quantitative measures of complexity of the trajectory of EEG map series in state space; their differences from pre-chewing data were compared across gum-chewing conditions. Friedman Anova (p < 0.043) showed that effects on Omega-Complexity differed significantly between conditions and differences were maximal between gum base and theanine gum. No differences were found using GDC. Global Omega-Complexity appears to be a sensitive measure for subtle, central effects of chewing gum with and without flavor.
authors.affiliation: The KEY Institute for Brain-Mind Research, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yagyu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wackermann
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kinoshita
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hirota
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kochi
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kondakor
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Koenig
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lehmann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D002638:Chewing Gum; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology; D013649:Taste / Q000502:physiology*; D013652:Taste Threshold / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D002638:Chewing Gum