Chewing-gum flavor affects measures of global complexity of multichannel EEG.
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.
Yagyu
T
T
The KEY Institute for Brain-Mind Research, University Hospital of Psychiatry, Zurich, Switzerland.
Wackermann
J
J
Kinoshita
T
T
Hirota
T
T
Kochi
K
K
Kondakor
I
I
Koenig
T
T
Lehmann
D
D
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
D002638:Chewing Gum