Last Tuesday we were finishing up our last few classes reading about and discussing the cognitive enhancement effects seen in chocolate. Because France is known for their rich chocolate, to celebrate our new knowledge of the field we went off to visit a chocolate museum. However, there was more than met the eye at this particular museum. On the basement floor, there was an area where the owners made chocolate themselves, which you could buy in the gift store, but, even more exciting, you could also make the chocolate yourselves!
At the museum I wandered around looking at the the history of chocolate, but as I looked at and read about the historical and ritual practices of chocolate, in the back of my mind I was thinking about getting to make the chocolate myself (and of course eat it)!
The time finally came to wash our hands, and head down into the room where the magic happened. All 22 of us went down into the room with a long marble table in the middle, and three different chocolate machines along the wall. The moment I walked in I walked over and could smell the yummy chocolate. To the dismay of the chocolatier, I think the next hour of molding chocolate was some of the most fun we’ve had on the trip so far.
Due to the fast pace of both NBB classes, I think everyone was looking to let off some steam, and playing with and eating chocolate was just the way to do that! By the end of our time I everyone had chocolate all over their hands, and in Oscar’s case, all over their faces as well! The chocolatier said he had never seen a group of adults get into chocolate molding with such gusto, and might have compared us to children a few times…. Nonetheless it was an amazing experience.
Because everyone seemed to be having so much fun, and laughing, I started thinking about the effects the chocolate may have been having on us. There have been studies show
ing that chocolate addresses serotonin deficiency, particularly in depressed individuals (Moller, 1992). In more recent literature there are claims that the eating of chocolate is merely a form of indulgence that invokes anticipatory and consummatory pleasure (Parker, Parker, and Brotchie, 2006). In either case, it seemed to me that chocolate was interacting with the mesolimbic dopaminergic system of all of us, and lifting our moods, even if that lifting was fleeting, as we all had to go back to writing our papers later that day!
References
Moller, S.E., (1992), Serotonin, carbohydrates and atypical depression. Pharmacology and Toxicology, 71(1): 61–71.
Parker G., Parker I., Brotchie H., (2006), Mood state effects of chocolate. Journal of affective disorders, 92: 149 – 159.