Ashton, Jake and Roberts, James and Wakefield, Caroline and MacLaren, Don P. M. and Marwood, Simon and Malone, James J. (2023) Medium chain triglycerides with a C8:C10 ratio of 30:70 enhances cognitive performance and mitigates the cognitive decline associated with prolonged exercise in young and healthy adults. Physiology & Behavior, 269. ISSN 0031-9384
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Abstract
Introduction: Prolonged exercise has been linked to a decline in cognitive function due to a variety of factors, such as a drop in oxygen in the prefrontal cortex and an increase in stress hormones and neurotransmitters. Medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) may possibly offset this decline as they provide energy for the brain via both direct and indirect pathways, alongside promoting chronic physiological adaptations within the brain.
Methods: Participants were divided into two groups; MCT (n = 9) and Placebo (n = 10). The MCT gels contained 6g of MCT with a C8:C10 ratio of 30:70, whereas the placebo gels contained carbohydrates of similar calorific value to the MCT gels. Participants visited the laboratory on three occasions (familiarisation/fitness test, pre-supplementation, post-supplementation), during which they performed a battery of cognitive tasks assessing domains such as processing speed, working memory, selective attention, decision making and coordination, before and after a prolonged bout of exercise (60 mins at 90% gas exchange threshold (GET). A 2-week supplementation period between visits 2 and 3 involved the ingestion of 2 gels per day.
Results: Exercise resulted in detriments in most cognitive tasks pre-supplementation for both groups, and post-supplementation for the Placebo group (main effect ps< .05). Post-supplementation, the effect of exercise was mediated in the MCT group for all cognitive tasks (main effect ps< .05), except for the Digit and Spatial Span Backwards test phases (main effect ps> .05). Furthermore, MCT supplementation enhanced before-exercise cognitive performance and in some measures, such as working memory, this was maintained after-exercise (interaction effect ps> .05).
Conclusions: Chronic MCT supplementation enhanced before-exercise cognitive performance and offset the cognitive decline caused by a prolonged bout of exercise. In some cases, improvements in before-exercise cognitive performance were maintained after-exercise.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information and Comments: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync- nd/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | MCTs, Cognition, Brain, Prolonged Exercise, Gas Exchange Threshold |
| Faculty / Department: | Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Health and Sport Sciences |
| Depositing User: | James Malone |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Jul 2023 10:42 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Jul 2023 12:48 |
| URI: | https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/3979 |
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