Can an acute dosage of Bacopa Monniera (brahmi) improve cognition, cardiovascular function and stress in a healthy older population

Bacopa Monnieri (BM) was first defined as a phytochemical brain tonic and touted to have the ability to improve memory, learning, and concentration for 3000 years (Zhou et al., 2007). Bacopa of late has had the statistical backing to support its cognitive enhancing capabilities (Calabrese et al., 2008) and since these findings BM has been trialled in a number of different settings offering new insights to its cognitive and physiological benefits. Investigations using BM on the response of elderly subjects uncovered significant cognitive improvements and a complete tolerability of the herb over a 12-week study (Calabrese et al. 2008). Elderly participants significantly improved their performance on learning tests and stroop tasks and showed decreases in Center for Epidemiologic Studies Short Depression Scale (CESD-10) depression scores and State-Trait Anxiety Indicator scores (STAI) scores. These studies allow us to hypothesize that cognitive improvements with the use of BM made after the age of 65 indicate its possible effectiveness on age related disorder (Calabrese et al. 2008; Barbhaiya et al.'s 2008). No study has reported any adverse events that weren’t also experienced by placebo groups, indicating a high tolerability of the drug among healthy human subjects. Furthermore using animal models, BM has been implicated in the amelioration of vascular dysfunction (Dar and Channa 1997), the decreased accumulation of beta-amyloid-42 (Holcomb et al. 2006) and acetylcholinesterase (Das et al. 2002), decreased levels of cholesterol (Anbarasi et al., 2005), and increased the activity of free radicals (Bhattacharya et al. 2000; Dhanasekaran et al. 2007) lessening the impact of oxidative stress associated with ageing and Alzheimer’s Dementia. The study will be an acute double blind, placebo controlled, crossover design investigating stress levels, cardiovascular effects, aortic elasticity, and cognitive function in an older adult population. Participants are required to attend testing sessions on three occasions; one practice day and two subsequent testing days separated by a seven day washout period. On the first of the testing days the participants will be randomly assigned to either placebo or treatment group and will then crossover groups on the second testing day. Each testing day will consist of a battery of tests, followed by the administration of the drug and a two hour wait period, followed by a second round of battery testing. The results of both pre-treatment and post-treatment testing will be compared using a repeated measures analysis of variance contrasting both groups in each condition over several testing periods.