According to the research team, since green tea appears to increase connectivity between frontal and parietal brain regions during working memory processing, it is worth testing the efficacy of green tea for the treatment of disorders involving cognitive impairments, such as dementia.
But they note there are some limitations in their study that need to be considered. They point out that, in contrast to the imaging results, there was no significant effect found between green tea consumption and task performance.
"However, we found a strong trend toward improved performance," they add, "suggesting that our study sample was too small to achieve differences on behavioral parameters."
In addition, the researchers note that the participants drank a soft drink containing green tea extract, not a pure green tea extract. They point out that if the participants drank a pure green tea extract, this would have avoided effects of other components, such as caffeine, which may have had some impact on participants' cognitive performance.
Our article on the health benefits of green tea reveals some other ways in which the beverage may be good for you, as well as potential risks from drinking green tea.
