Investigation of the Acute and Chronic Cognitive and Mood Effects of CP9700 in Humans

Overview

This acute-on-chronic study will examine the effectiveness of CP9700 for improving cognitive performance and mood in healthy young adults. CP9700 is a mix of highly purified grape seed-derived polyphenolic extracts from Vitis vinifera produced by Polyphenolics Inc. (Madera, CA, USA). The polyphenolic component of the product is comprised entirely of catechin and epicatechin, derivatives of catechin and epicatechin (e.g.,epicatechin gallate), and proanthocyanidins. We will perform a randomised, double-blind, parallel-groups human intervention trial using CP9700 and a well characterised sugar-matched placebo to investigate changes in cognitive performance.

Interventions: Two interventions will be tested, CP9700 (400 mg) and a placebo. Importantly, the placebo will be matched to the active treatment for sugars and vitamin C levels. All interventions will be supplied in blister packs. Participants: A total of 60 healthy, young adult participants will be recruited for these studies. Based upon the medium effect size (d = .65) observed in previous work using healthy adults and the Go/No go task, we calculate that a sample of 25 participants/treatment will provide considerable power (.70) to detect a similar sized effect in this study. The recruitment procedure allows for a 15% drop out rate. Participants will be recruited directly from the School of Psychology \& Clinical Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Panel. Procedure: Following recruitment to the study, participants will start a two-week 'run-in' phase. During this phase, all participants will complete a 3-day food frequency questionnaire to give a measure of their habitual diet before being asked to adhere to a low-flavonoid diet, we will collect a 3-day food diary to check compliance and they will attend the laboratory for an initial 'practice' session of the cognitive tasks (see below). On the evening before the 'active treatment' phase commences, participants will be asked to consume a standard meal- this procedure will be repeated for each evening meal consumed prior to a test day. On the acute test day, participants will attend the laboratory in a fasted state where they will receive a standard low-flavanoid breakfast, followed by a battery of cognitive and mood tasks (see below). Subjects will then be given their intervention, and will be re-tested on our task battery at two-hourly intervals over a 6 hour period before being allowed to return home. During the chronic phase of the study, after 6 and 12 weeks of consuming the intervention, subjects will return to the lab in a fasted state (prior to taking their daily intervention), will be given a standard low flavonoid breakfast, and will be tested on the task battery before consuming their allocated intervention. Compliance will be assured through collection of used blister packs. The task battery is composed of cognitive tests and measures of mood, which our previous data show to be sensitive to flavonoid interventions, both acutely and chronically. More generally, the cognitive tests are categorised into one of two key cognitive domains; (i) Executive Function (i.e., Serial Sevens, Stroop, Modified Attention Network Test) and (ii) Episodic Memory (i.e., immediate and delayed auditory recall, verbal recognition, immediate and delayed spatial memory). Moreover, our previous data indicates increased cerebral blood flow in the in the acute postprandial phase 2-5 hours following flavonoid consumption in brain regions required for executive function and episodic memory including the frontal cortex and frontal gyrus. In addition, changes in mood will be measured using the PANAS, which has previously been shown to be sensitive to flavonoid interventions acutely and chronically.