Addicted to Coffee? Good for you, since it can help your memory. A study found in Pharmacol Biochem Behav found that caffeine is able to increase long term memory in lab rats (Abreu et al 2011). In the experiment the researchers made caffeine and coffee a fraction of the diet for some test pools. After 80 days the rats where retested for memories that were taught before the period of dietary change. All though these rats where experience some serious caffeine highs; there was no increase in the rats locomotor or exploratory activities. As the study says, “chronic coffee ingestion” leads to improved cognitive function which may be good news due to the over consumption of this product in our society. The scientists of this study suggest that this fact may be an important role when considering age associated decline in cognitive function. This has also been studied in humans as Appetite published an article about caffeinated herbal chewing gum improving memory (Davidson 2011). The study was trying to test if this caffeinated Herbal chewing gum would increase memory function as well as concentration. The 62 students involved in the study showed results that using the gum, compared to other test groups, led to elevated mental performance. Pretty impressive for the $2 pack of gum. Sometimes caffeine can get bad PR though due to withdrawals and crashes but another study found in The Journal of Nutrition suggest other positive effects of the use of caffeine ranging from enhanced physical activity, increased alertness/awareness, increase accuracy of reaction, increase ability to problem solve, enhanced short term memory, and much more (Glade 2010). When it comes to memory caffeine has some stimulating results. In the spirit of winter finals, coffee may just make you do that much better when studying and cramming last minute.
Glade MJ (2010). Caffeine- Not just a Stimulant. Nutrition (10): 932-8.
Abreu RV, Silva EM, Moraes MF, Pereira GS, Moraes T (2011). Chronic coffee and caffeine ingestion effects on cognitive function and antioxidant system of rat brains. Pharmacol Biochem Behav, 99(4): 659-64.
Davidson MG (2011). Herbal-caffeinated chewing gum, but not bubble gum, improves aspects of memory. Appetite 57(1): 303-7
www.thinkgum.com
Being a big coffee drinker, this is really good news for me. But I wonder what the actually physiological pathways would be for the coffee to be able to enhance our cognitive skills. Is it just because we are awake and alert that improve all the other functions or does the caffeine somehow enhance the receptors or cause a change in neurotransmitters?
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