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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Syst. Neurosci.
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2024.1489919

Effect of chewing hard material on boosting brain antioxidant levels and enhancing cognitive function

Provisionally accepted
Seungho Kim Seungho Kim 1Ji-Hye Kim Ji-Hye Kim 1Hansol Lee Hansol Lee 1Sung Ho Jang Sung Ho Jang 2Ralph Noeske Ralph Noeske 3Changho Choi Changho Choi 4Yongmin Chang Yongmin Chang 1*Youn-Hee Choi Youn-Hee Choi 1*
  • 1 Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
  • 2 College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang, Republic of Korea
  • 3 GE Healthcare (Germany), Munich, Bavaria, Germany
  • 4 Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction Chewing has been reported to enhance cognitive function through the increase in cerebral blood flow. However, the mechanisms linking cerebral blood flow increase to metabolic changes in the brain affecting cognition remain unclear. We hypothesized that glutathione (GSH) plays a pivotal role in these mechanisms. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate changes in brain GSH levels following chewing and their association with cognitive function in healthy young adults.Methods A total of 52 university students were recruited, and the Korean version of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status was used for the neurocognitive evaluations. Brain GSH levels following chewing gum or wood blocks were measured using MEscher-GArwood Point RESolved Spectroscopy (MEGA-PRESS) sequence, and their relevance to neurocognitive evaluation results was investigated.Chewing significantly increased brain GSH concentration, particularly in the woodchewing group compared to the gum-chewing group, as observed in the anterior cingulate cortex. Furthermore, the rise in GSH concentration in the wood-chewing group was positively correlated with memory function.Chewing moderately hard material elevates brain antioxidant levels such as GSH, potentially influencing cognitive function.

    Keywords: Mastication, Hardness, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Cognitive Function, Motor function, brain activation

    Received: 02 Sep 2024; Accepted: 04 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kim, Kim, Lee, Jang, Noeske, Choi, Chang and Choi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yongmin Chang, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
    Youn-Hee Choi, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea

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