Great results (dark chocolate improves attention and lowers blood pressure), but keep in mind that the research was sponsored by the Hershey company. But not to worry, it basically found what other studies have found - that chocolate is a stimulant that activates the brain. From Science Daily:
Eat dark chocolate to beat the midday slump?
Larry Stevens eats a piece of high-cacao content chocolate every afternoon, which is in part because he has developed a taste for the unsweetened dark chocolate. It's also because research shows that it lowers blood pressure and his new study reveals that it improves attention, which is especially important when hitting that midday slump.
"Chocolate is indeed a stimulant and it activates the brain in a really special way," said Stevens, a professor of psychological sciences at NAU. "It can increase brain characteristics of attention, and it also significantly affects blood pressure levels."
Historically, chocolate has been recognized as a vasodilator, meaning that it widens blood vessels and lowers blood pressure in the long run, but chocolate also contains some powerful stimulants. Stevens said his team wanted to investigate if people who consume chocolate would see an immediate stimulant effect.
Stevens and his colleagues in the Department of Psychological Sciences performed the EEG study with 122 participants between the ages of 18 and 25 years old. The researchers examined the EEG levels and blood pressure effects of consuming a 60 percent cacao confection compared with five control conditions...The results for the participants who consumed the 60 percent cacao chocolate showed that the brain was more alert and attentive after consumption. Their blood pressure also increased for a short time.
The most interesting results came from one of the control conditions, a 60 percent cacao chocolate which included L-theanine, an amino acid found in green tea that acts as a relaxant. This combination hasn't been introduced to the market yet, so you won't find it on the candy aisle...."L-theanine is a really fascinating product that lowers blood pressure and produces what we call alpha waves in the brain that are very calm and peaceful," Stevens said. For participants who consumed the high-cacao content chocolate with L-theanine, researchers recorded an immediate drop in blood pressure.