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Animal study

In rats, nose-sprayed creatine gave fewer maze errors than swallowed creatine

Chen and colleagues · Brain research bulletin · 2023

Original title: Intranasal creatine administration increases brain creatine level and improves Barnes maze performance in rats.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

Rats given creatine in the nose made fewer maze errors and had higher creatine in the memory-related brain areas than swallowed or control rats.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Animal study
Who or what was studied
rats
What was tested
Creatine hydrochloride sprayed in the nose vs swallowed vs nothing, then a maze memory test
What it measured
Several kinds of outcomes
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
Brain research bulletin, 2023
Source
PubMed record 37429386. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Done in animals. Results in animals often do not carry over to people.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: memory and thinking

    5

    2 benefit, 1 mixed, 2 no difference

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    6

    5 benefit, 1 mixed

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  4. Population studies

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  6. Animals

    1

    1 benefit

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does creatine improve memory and brain health?”

Possibly a small boost to memory.

Confidence: low. Based on 21 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Few other papers sit on the same step, so there is little to compare it with.

Other papers on the same step

None among the papers we read.

See all 21 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads differed. The reviewer checked the abstract and kept the first read. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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