BDNF and Anxiety: There is a long list of beneficial neural effects of cocoa including: epigenetic mechanisms targeting multiple classes of chromatin writer-reader-eraser proteins related to histone acetylation-methylation and DNA methylation, improvement of memory and learning through enhanced dentate gyrus function, and decreased anxiety with elevated hippocampal monoamine and Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) levels (Van Praag et al., 2007; Brickman et al., 2014; Stringer et al., 2015; Declerck et al., 2016).