Cinnamon improves learning ability, says study
Posted on: 21/Jul/2016 9:48:51 AM
The new study has found that cinnamon, the aromatic household spice that is often added to food items to enhance flavour, may improve learning ability. The study was conducted by researchers at the Rush University and was published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology.
Say the researchers, We found that feeding cinnamon to laboratory mice determined to have poor learning ability made the them better learners. This would be one of the safest and the easiest approaches to convert poor learners to good learners. Some people are born naturally good learners, some become good learners by effort, and some find it hard to learn new tasks even with effort. Understanding brain mechanisms that lead to poor learning is important to developing effective strategies to improve memory and learning ability.
In poor learners, CREB, which is a protein involved in memory and learning, is lower and the GABRA 5, which generated tonic inhibitory conductance in the brain is more.
The researchers used mice in their study. The mice received oral feedings of ground cinnamon, which their bodies metabolised into sodium benzoate, a chemical used as a drug treatment for brain damage. When the sodium benzoate entered the mice`s brains, it increased CREB, decreased GABRA5, and stimulated the plasticity , or the ability to change, of hippocampal neurons. These changes in turn led to improved memory and learning among the mice.
Speaking about this, the researchers say, We have successfully used cinnamon to reverse biochemical, cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with poor learning. We used a Barnes maze, a standard elevated circular maze consisting of 20 holes, to identify mice with good and bad learning abilities. After two days of training, the mice were examined for their ability to find the target hole. We tested the mice again after one month of cinnamon feeding. We found that after eating their cinnamon, the poor learning mice had improved memory and learning at a level found in good learning mice. However, we did not find any significant improvement among good learners by cinnamon. Individual difference in learning and educational performance is a global issue. We need to further test this approach in poor learners. If these results are replicated in poor learning students, it would be a remarkable advance.
