ArticlePloS one2013
Gum chewing inhibits the sensory processing and the propagation of stress-related information in a brain network.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Chewing and attention: a positive effect on sustained attention.BioMed research international · 2015Pooled it
- Flavour-enhanced cortisol release during gum chewing.PloS one · 2017Trial
- The Neural Correlates of Chewing Gum-A Neuroimaging Review of Its Effects on Brain Activity.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Article
- Stress Reduction Effects during Block-Tapping Task of Jaw in Healthy Participants: Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Measurements of Prefrontal Cortex Activity.Brain sciences · 2022Article
- Efficiency of chewable toothbrush in reduction of dental plaque in students.BMC oral health · 2019Article
- Using resting-state DMN effective connectivity to characterize the neurofunctional architecture of empathy.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Revisiting the link between cognitive decline and masticatory dysfunction.BMC geriatrics · 2018Review
- Environmental Enrichment and Successful Aging.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2018Review
- Chewing gum and stress reduction.Journal of clinical and translational research · 2016Review
- The Difference between Aesthetic Appreciation of Artistic and Popular Music: Evidence from an fMRI Study.PloS one · 2016Article
- Relationships Between Gum-Chewing and Stress.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2016Article
- Mastication as a Stress-Coping Behavior.BioMed research international · 2015Review
- Chewing gum: cognitive performance, mood, well-being, and associated physiology.BioMed research international · 2015Article
- Identification and adjustment of experimental occlusal interference using functional magnetic resonance imaging.BMC oral health · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Stress is prevalent in human life and threatens both physical and mental health; stress coping is thus of adaptive value for individual's survival and well-being. Although there has been extensive research on how the neural and physiological systems respond to stressful stimulation, relatively little is known about how the brain dynamically copes with stress evoked by this stimulation. Here we investigated how stress is relieved by a popular coping behavior, namely, gum chewing. In an fMRI study, we used loud noise as an acute stressor and asked participants to rate their feeling of stress in gum-chewing and no-chewing conditions. The participants generally felt more stressful when hearing noise, but less so when they were simultaneously chewing gum. The bilateral superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the left anterior insula (AI) were activated by noise, and their activations showed a positive correlation with the self-reported feeling of stress. Critically, gum chewing significantly reduced the noise-induced activation in these areas. Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis showed that the functional connectivity between the left AI and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) was increased by noise to a lesser extent when the participants were chewing gum than when not chewing gum. Dynamic causality modeling (DCM) demonstrated that gum chewing inhibited the connectivity from the STS to the left AI. These findings demonstrate that gum chewing relieves stress by attenuating the sensory processing of external stressor and by inhibiting the propagation of stress-related information in the brain stress network.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.