4. Discussion
CHO mouth
Previous research on the potential effects of CHO mouth rinsing on electrophysiological correlates of neurocognitive functions is scarce and largely inconclusive [The main findings of the present study concern our electrophysiological brain measures. Here, N1On the one hand, smaller N1On the other hand, N2Contrary to our brain data, mouth rinsing did not affect behavioral performance. More precisely, neither RTs nor %correct were affected by the type of solution rinsed. Of less relevance to this study’s research objective, we found congruency effects for both RTs and %correct. Thus, despite dealing with a Simon task programming error, our task was still effective in manipulating congruency as initially planned.Considering our questionnaire data, mouth rinsing did affect ratings of sweetness and viscosity. Unfortunately, the CHO solution was rated sweeter and more viscous than the NNS solution. This finding illustrates unsuccessful taste matching, although we relied on taste-matched solutions from previous mouth-rinsing research [At this stage, it is crucial to address several fundamental questions. Firstly, do our results indicate the presence of ergogenic or ergolytic effects on neurocognition due to CHO mouth rinsing? Resolving this matter may prove to be a complex issue. Although we observed differences between solutions at the electrophysiological level, no such differences were apparent at the behavioral level. Therefore, mapping the observations made at both levels onto each other, which would have aided in interpreting the direction of our brain data, is a complex task. Moreover, most studies that have evaluated the electrophysiological correlates of visuospatial attention through Simon tasks have used bilateral target presentations instead of unilateral presentations [Furthermore, linking our findings to previous research on the effects of CHO mouth rinsing on electrophysiological correlates of cognition is also severely limited. Specifically, to our knowledge, no other study has investigated the effects of CHO mouth rinsing on electrophysiological correlates associated with visuospatial attention. Although two studies examined the effects of CHO mouth rinsing on the P3-ERP component and interpreted it as an electrophysiological index of attention [Thus, our interpretation of the study’s results can only be speculative at this stage. Nonetheless, we suggest that a slight shift in our understanding of how CHO mouth rinsing may influence both neurocognition (and possibly also physical performance) would enhance the interpretation of our findings and be of value for future research. Going beyond the prevailing belief that CHO mouth rinsing may improve (or worsen) specific functions or performance metrics, in general, may yield new insights. Therefore, we propose that our electrophysiological results may reflect the adoption of different “central control modes,” with neither mode proving superior in this study’s task context, as evidenced by the lack of differences in behavioral performance. Generally, depending on the specific task to be performed, whether cognitive or physical, shifting into a particular control mode may or may not yield adaptive benefits.Applying this logic to our brain data, we propose that the modulated N1Compared to CHO mouth rinsing, the increased N1A potential reduction in early attentional processing of incongruent stimuli induced by CHO rinsing, however, could generate costs at later processing stages. More specifically, less attentional orienting to incongruent stimuli may have come at the expense of reductions in processing the relevant stimulus dimension (i.e., shape). Therefore, to achieve optimal behavioral performance, a need for compensation may arise at later processing stages. Our N2If all the interpretations above remain speculative, hypotheses on how CHO mouth rinsing might induce shifts in control states mechanistically may motivate future research endeavors. While the exact mechanisms underlying the effects of CHO mouth rinsing remain unclear, imaging studies have indicated that CHO mouth rinsing may activate neural reward circuits stronger relative to NNS rinsing [At this point, we would like to clarify all our study’s limitations. First, matching solutions concerning taste evaluation was unsuccessful (see [