LOS ANGELES — Older chocoholics may have a new excuse to indulge: The dark stuff not only soothes the soul, but might also sharpen the mind.

In a study published in the journal Neurology, researchers reported that chocolate may help improve brain health and thinking skills in the elderly. The Boston-based team found that older people who initially performed poorly on a memory and reasoning test and also had reduced blood flow to their brains showed improvement after drinking two cups of cocoa every day for a month.

The researchers had set out to test whether chocolate could increase blood flow to the brain during problem solving, boosting performance, after finding in earlier studies that consuming chocolate high in the antioxidant flavonol was associated with better brain and blood vessel functioning. They recruited 60 elderly subjects.

The participants drank two cups of hot chocolate every day for 30 days. Before and after the study period, they completed a memory and reasoning test, which assessed their ability to recognize patterns in a series of letters on a computer screen.

People who performed poorly on the initial cognitive test — about a third of the participants — also had reduced blood flow to their brains and widespread white matter damage. Those who scored high on the test had significantly better blood flow and more intact white matter, indicating that blood flow, cognitive functioning and brain structure were linked.