Trial reportEuropean journal of nutrition2024
Concurrent consumption of cocoa flavanols and caffeine does not acutely modulate working memory and attention.
Trial report in European journal of nutrition, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Acute Caffeine Intake Does Not Modulate Active or Reactive Inhibition in Non-Clinical Young Adults, and ADHD Symptoms Do Not Moderate Its Effects.Human psychopharmacology · 2026Trial
- Cocoa polyphenols in brain health: BDNF/CREB-mediated mechanisms in depression, cognition, and the gut-brain axis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeConsumption of cocoa flavanols and caffeine might acutely enhance cognition, particularly in synergy. Due to the use of multifaceted tasks in prior research, it is unclear precisely which cognitive functions are implicated. Here we aimed to assess the acute effects of the (joint) ingestion of cocoa flavanols and caffeine on temporal attention, spatial attention, and working memory.
methodsIn four separate sessions of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial, 48 young adult participants consumed a placebo drink, a cocoa flavanols (415 mg) drink, a caffeine (215 mg) drink, and a drink containing both concurrently. In each session, after ingestion, we tested performance in three cognitive tasks. We tested temporal attention in a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation paradigm, known to elicit the attentional blink, in which the time between the targets was manipulated. We measured spatial attention in a visual search task, where we varied the number of distractors that appeared simultaneously with the target. We tested working memory in a delayed recall task, in which the number of stimuli to be remembered was manipulated.
resultsWe obtained the expected performance pattern in each task, but found no evidence for modulation of response accuracy or reaction times by the ingestion of either substance, nor of their combined ingestion, even in the most challenging task conditions.
conclusionsWe conclude that, even when jointly ingested, neither the tested amount of cocoa flavanols nor caffeine have acute effects that are robustly measurable on cognitive tasks that target attention and working memory specifically.
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