Acute Paraxanthine Ingestion Improves Cognition and Short-Term Memory and Helps Sustain Attention in a Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Trial

200MG PARAXANTHINE VS. PLACEBO

Design: Double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, trial

Intervention: 200mg paraxanthine or placebo, 1 week washout

Subjects: 13 healthy male (n=10) and female (n=3) subjects  (age: 24±5 years, height: 170.0±11.8 cm, weight 72.9±19.3 kg)

 

Measures at baseline: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 hours after supplementation:

  • Attention and impulsivity control (Go/No Go Test)
  • Ability to remain heedfully vigilant (Vigilance Task Test)
  • Short-term/working memory (Sternberg Test)
  • Cognitive flexibility (Berg-Washington Card Sorting Task Test)




Results for attention and inhibitory control:

  • Paraxanthine supplementation resulted in faster response times (shows less metal fatigue)
  • Paraxanthine maintained percentage of correct answers, while placebo showed a significant decrease in correct answers
  • Paraxanthine increased the capacity for sustained attention and response control

 

Results for sustained attention:

  • Paraxanthine resulted in sustained attention (maintained reaction times, prevention of mental fatigue), measuring a person's ability to remain heedfully vigilant
  • In contrast, placebo showed significantly reduced reactions times (overall hours 3 and 6)

 

Results for cognitive flexibility:

  • Paraxanthine significantly increased the number of correct answers, while reducing the number of errors
  • Paraxanthine increased cognitive flexibility or set-shifting between old/new rule changes

 



Results for working memory:

  • Paraxanthine decreased mean response times by 3.9% (faster) compared to baseline, whereas the placebo group was 2.7% faster
  • Paraxanthine significantly increased short-term/working memory in one measure (letter length 6, present reaction time after 4 and 5 hours, see figure below on the right)
  • As the list length increases, probe judgments become less accurate and slower, indicating increases in short-term memory and working memory demands

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Read the full study here.

 

 

Study by: Yoo, C.; Xing, D.; Gonzalez, D.; Jenkins, V.; Nottingham, K.; Dickerson, B.; Leonard, M.; Ko, J.; Faries, M.; Kephart, W.; Purpura, M.; Jäger, R.; Wells, S.D.; Sowinski, R.; Rasmussen, C.J.; Kreider, R.B. Acute Paraxanthine Ingestion Improves Cognition and Short-Term Memory and Helps Sustain Attention in a Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Crossover Trial. Nutrients 2021, 13, 3980. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13113980