CHEWING-GUM FLAVOR AFFECTS MEASURES OF GLOBAL COMPLEXITY OF MULTICHANNEL EEG

Global complexity of spontaneous brain electric activity was studied b efore and after chewing gum without flavor and with 2 different flavor s. One-minute, 19-channel, eyes-closed electroencephalograms (EEG) wer e recorded from 20 healthy males before and after using 3 types of che wing gum: regular gum containing sugar and aromatic additives, gum con taining 200 mg theanine (a constituent of Japanese green tea), and gum base (no sugar, no aromatic additives); each was chewed for 5 min in randomized sequence. Brain electric activity was assessed through Glob al Omega (Omega)-Complexity and Global Dimensional Complexity (GDC), q uantitative measures of complexity of the trajectory of EEG map series in state space; their differences from pre-chewing data were compared across gum-chewing conditions. Friedman Anova (p < 0.043) showed that effects on Omega-Complexity differed significantly between conditions and differences were maximal between gum base and theanine gum. No di fferences were found using GDC. Global Omega-Complexity appears to be a sensitive measure for subtle, central effects of chewing gum with an d without flavor.