SynthesisNutrients2023
Food Hardness Modulates Behavior, Cognition, and Brain Activation: A Systematic Review of Animal and Human Studies.
Synthesis in Nutrients, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Masticatory performance in aging populations: A scoping review of research landscapes in Japan, Sweden, and India.The Japanese dental science review · 2026Review
- A global mapping of research on the relationship between oral health and nutritional status.BDJ open · 2026Article
- Assessment of Orofacial Muscle Strength, Masticatory and Swallowing Function in Children Indicated for Orthodontic Treatment-A Preliminary Investigation.Journal of oral rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Advances in research on dental occlusion and brain function: neuroimaging correlates and molecular mechanisms.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Review
- Texture Properties and Chewing of κ-Carrageenan-Konjac Gum-Milk Hydrogels Modified with Carrot Callus Cells.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Texture Perception and Chewing of Agar Gel by People with Different Sensitivity to Hardness.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Task-Based Eating and Drinking Interventions in Animal Models: A Narrative Review of Functional Improvements and Neuromuscular Adaptations in Age-Related Dysphagia.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Nutritional status and dietary habits in older adults with fixed implant dental prostheses: a case-control study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Food hardness is one of the dietary features that may impact brain functions. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the effect of food hardness (hard food versus soft food diet) on behavior, cognition, and brain activation in animals and humans (PROSPERO ID: CRD42021254204). The search was conducted on 29 June 2022 using Medline (Ovid), Embase, and Web of Science databases. Data were extracted, tabulated by food hardness as an intervention, and summarized by qualitative synthesis. The SYRCLE and JBI tools were used to assess the risk of bias (RoB) of individual studies. Of the 5427 studies identified, 18 animal studies and 6 human studies met the inclusion criteria and were included. The RoB assessment indicated that 61% of animal studies had unclear risks, 11% had moderate risks, and 28% had low risks. All human studies were deemed to have a low risk of bias. The majority (48%) of the animal studies showed that a hard food diet improved behavioral task performance compared to soft food diets (8%). However, 44% of studies also showed no differential effects of food hardness on behavioral tests. It was also evident that certain regions of the brain were activated in response to changes in food hardness in humans, with a positive association between chewing hard food, cognition performance, and brain function. However, variations in the methodologies of the included studies hindered the meta-analysis execution. In conclusion, our findings highlight the beneficial effects of dietary food hardness on behavior, cognition, and brain function in both animals and humans, however, this effect may depend on several factors that require further understanding of the causality.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.