Effects of natural and artificial sweeteners on visual spatial memory function

Abstract

Evidence suggests that ingestion of glucose immediately improves cognitive performance including in memory tasks the performance of which is associated with the hippocampus. The literature to date has examined the effects of glucose consumption on visual spatial memory in two-dimensional environments. This study hypothesised that these results could be replicated in a three dimensional environment. It investigated whether one off ingestion of glucose would improve visual spatial memory in a three-dimensional environment, and further whether visual spatial memory would be adversely affected by longer term consumption of glucose. By contrast with previous studies, the results did not suggest that one-off ingestion of glucose improves visual spatial memory, nor negative correlations between long term glucose consumption, visual spatial memory and hippocampal function. Numerous alternative explanations, limitations, and suggestions for the conduct of further studies in this area, are discussed in the paper.