Identification of l-theanine acid effectiveness in oolong tea on human brain memorization and meditation

Abstract

Oolong tea has L-theanine acid, which have an impact on human brain wave activity, especially for memorization and meditation. To describe the change in the mentioned states, it requires investigating theta and alpha waves. Higher attention frequency of brain waves indicates an improvement mental activity. Therefore, this study proposes a method to identify the effect level of L-theanine acid in Oolong tea focused on changing memorization and meditation states individually. It performs the detection of electroencephalography (EEG), statistical analysis, and data classification with specific factors to digest the distinct effect levels. The human brain waves are detected via Neurosky Mindwave Mobile during the book reading state, comparing before drinking and after drinking conditions. The detected signals are converted into voltage values and analyzed a paired sample t-test for defining the difference between the two states statistically. Moreover, an artificial neural network is used to classify the effect level with associated factors including gender, age, and body mass index (BMI) into low, medium, and high levels. It provides 90% accuracy of 17 participants with low, 13 participants with medium, and 6 participants with high levels. The experimental results show that the level of both memorization and meditation is statistically significantly increased after drinking. The instances are presented as scattered data separately. Although L-theanine in Oolong tea increases the mental state, it does not involve the specific factors in this study. Hence, it has different effects on a particular person.