For Daily Use Neuroscience

Cocoa antioxidant sweetens cognition in elderly

Flavanols in very high doses helped people distinguish patterns in a small study

Chocolate bars

High doses of cocoa flavanols may aid performance in certain memory tasks. But these antioxidants are removed during chocolate processing.

Tim Sackton/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

By Bethany Brookshire

- More than 2 years ago

Extremely high doses of cocoa flavanols may improve older people’s ability to distinguish one complex pattern from another — or at least so says a study partially funded by the chocolate company Mars Inc.,