A wild green-oats extract (Neuravena®) containing a range of potentially 
bioactive components, including flavonoids and triterpene saponins, has 
previously been shown to enhance animal stress responses and memory, and improve 
cognitive performance in humans at a dose of 1600 mg. Methods This double-blind, 
placebo-controlled, counterbalanced cross-over study assessed the effects of 
single doses of the green-oat extract (GOE) across a broad range of cognitive 
domains in healthy adults aged 40-65 years who self-reported that they felt that 
their memory had declined with age. Participants attended on six occasions, 
receiving a single dose of either placebo, 800, or 1600 mg GOE on each occasion, 
with the counterbalanced order of treatments repeated twice for each 
participant. Cognitive function was assessed with a range of computerized tasks 
measuring attention, spatial/working/episodic memory, and executive function 
pre-dose and at 1, 2.5, 4, and 6 hours post-dose. Results The results showed 
that 800mg GOE increased the speed of performance across post-dose assessments 
on a global measure including data from all of the timed tasks. It also improved 
performance of a delayed word recall task in terms of errors and an executive 
function task (Peg and Ball) in terms of decreased thinking time and overall 
completion time. Working memory span (Corsi blocks) was also increased, but only 
on the second occasion that this dose was taken. Discussion These results 
confirm the acute cognitive effects of GOE seen in previous research, and 
suggest that the optimal dose lies at or below 800 mg.