Nutritional Quality of Breakfast Affects Cognitive Function: An fMRI Study
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
Abstract
To investigate the neural underpinnings of the effect of nutrition, brain activity of six young healthy volunteers who had a breakfast including various nutrients was compared to when they skipped breakfast or had only sugar for breakfast by functional magnetic resonance imaging. A repeated measure counterbalanced crossover design was employed. We demonstrated that significantly higher brain activation was observed in the medial aspect of the prefrontal cortex when the subjects had a nutritionally balanced breakfast while the subjects were conducting N-back tasks. This preliminary report was the first to demonstrate by means of brain imaging techniques that taking various nutrients as breakfast as well sugar has relevant impacts on underlying physiological events or cognition.
- D. Benton and P. Y. Parker, “Breakfast, Blood Glucose, and Cognition,” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 67, No. 4, 1998, pp. S772-S778.
- G. C. Rampersau, M. A. Pereira, B. L. Girard, J. Adams and J. D. Metzl, “Breakfast Habits, Nutritional Status, Body Weight, and Academic Performance in Children and Adolescents,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 105, No. 5, 2005, pp. 743-760.
- A. Hoyland, C. L. Lawton and L. Dye, “Acute Effects of Macronutrient Manipulations on Cognitive Test Performance in Healthy Young Adults: A Systematic Research Review,” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2007, pp. 72-85.
- T. Higuchi, K. Hamada, S. Imazuya and S. Irie, “The Effect of Breakfast Omission and Breakfast Type on Body Temperature, Mood and Intellectual Performance,” Journal of Japanese Society of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2007, pp. 35-43.
- Y. Liu, J. H. Gao, H. L. Liu, P. and T. Fox, “The Temporal Response of the Brain after Eating Revealed by Functional MRI,” Nature, Vol. 405, No. 6790, 2000, pp. 1058- 1062
- M. Matsuda and F. Matsuda, “The Factorial Analysis of Uchida-Kraepelin Pshychodiagnostic Test in Normal and Delinquent Boys and Girls,” Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 16, 1968, pp. 50-58.
- K. Sugimoto, A. Kanai, and N. Shoji, “The Effectiveness of the Uchida-Kraepelin Test for Psychological Stress: An Analysis of Plasma and Salivary Stress Substances,” BioPsychoSocial Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 5, 2009, ArtID5. http://www.bpsme-dicine.com/content
- W. K. Kirchner, “Age Differences in Short-Term Retention of Rapidly Changing Information,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 55, No. 4, 1958, pp. 352- 358.
- M. J. Susanne and B. Martin, “The Concurrent Validity of the N-Back Task as a Working Memory Measure,” Memory, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2010, pp. 394-412.
- R. J. Berger, and N. H. Philips, “Comparative Aspects of Energy Metabolism, Body Temperature and Sleep,” Acta physiologica Scandinavica Suppl, Vol. 574, 1998, pp. 21-27.
- E. A. de Bruin and M. B. Gilsenan, “Effects of Food Energy on Cognitive Performance: No Support From Event- Related Potentials,” British Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 101, No. 7, 2009, pp. 1047-1051.
- K. Fischer, P. C. Colombani, W. Langhans and C. Wenk, “Carbohydrate to Protein Ration in Food and Cognitive Performance in the Morning,” Physiology & Behavior, Vol. 75, No. 3, 2002, pp. 411-423.