Coffee has a lot of uses and purposes in our lives. We drink it when we want to stay awake and lively, especially when there is an exam the next day. Sometimes, we drink coffee just for the sake of it. And a lot of us drink coffee to collect enough stamps and redeem the limited edition and exclusive Starbucks planner.
But now, coffees are now famous for its newly discovered new feature:
a memory enhancer. It’s not just coffees though; it can be a cup of tea or a
can of soda- in short, anything with caffeine in it. This new finding is
courtesy of the Johns Hopkins University.
The team was led by Daniel Borota,
the lead author of the paper and an undergraduate student of Michael Yassa, an
assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at the university.
Yassa and his team found that caffeine has a positive effect on our long-term
memory. Nature Neuroscience, the
journal which published their research, states that caffeine enhances certain
memories at least up to 24 hours after it is consumed.
"We've always known that
caffeine has cognitive-enhancing effects, but its particular effects on
strengthening memories and making them resistant to forgetting has never been
examined in detail in humans," said Yassa, senior author of the paper.
"We report for the first time a specific effect of caffeine on reducing
forgetting over 24 hours."
A few of the studies conducted testing caffeine’s effect on our
memory state that it has very little or has no effect at all to long-term
memory retention, but the Johns Hopkins University Researchers found a reason
for this.
All of these prior studies took a dose of caffeine before the
experiment while this specific study took it after. "Almost all prior studies administered caffeine before
the study session, so if there is an enhancement, it's not clear if it's due to
caffeine's effects on attention, vigilance, focus, or other factors,"
Yassa said. "By administering caffeine after the experiment, we rule out
all of these effects and make sure that if there is an enhancement, it's due to
memory and nothing else."
A double-blind trial was
conducted by these researchers with participants aged 18-30 years old. On the
first day of the study, the participants were asked to identify different
pictures as “indoors” or “outdoors” objects. Soon after this, who did not
regularly eat or drink caffeinated products randomly received either a placebo
or a 200-milligram. To measure the participants’ caffeine level before they
took these tablets, salivary samples were taken. Samples were taken again one,
three, and 24 hours afterwards.
The next day, the
two groups were tested on how well they can recognize the pictures the day
before. They were asked whether the pictures were “old”, “new”, or “similar to
the original pictures”. From this, the
researchers found that those who took caffeine were better at identifying
pictures which were a little bit similar than just erroneously saying that they
were the same pictures.
Pattern separation
is the phenomenon referring to the brain’s ability to differentiate two
similar, but not identical items. And taking caffeine, based on the research,
reflects a deeper level of memory retention according to the researchers.
Further research was
conducted by this team using 100 mg and 300 mg and recommended that an average
person must have at least 200-milligram dose of caffeine a day, or simply a cup
of strong coffee. From this, they found that
performance of the 100 mg group was relatively lower compared with the 200 mg
dose, but there was no improvement after the 300 mg of caffeine.
"Thus,
we conclude that a dose of at least 200 mg is required to observe the enhancing
effect of caffeine on consolidation of memory," the study authors write.
The researchers also
discovered that memory was not improved if participants were given caffeine an
hour before proceeding with the test.
The team concludes that there is a wide array of
possibilities regarding to the mechanisms in which caffeine enhances our long-term
memory and noted that further research should be done to have a better understanding
of the process by which caffeine affects long-term memory.
So for all you
coffee-lovers out there, including me, isn't it wonderful news to know that you
benefit from coffee, while enjoying it at the same time? (Not only coffee, but
also tea and anything that has caffeine in it!) Now we know what to do when we
have those brain-wrecking exams for tomorrow!
Caffeine
has positive effect on memory, Johns Hopkins researchers say. Johns
Hopkins University Hub. http://hub.jhu.edu/2014/01/12/caffeine-enhances-memory.
February 28, 2014.
Sanders, Laura, Jan. 12, 2014. Caffeine
may improve memory. Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/caffeine-may-improve-memory.
February, 28, 2014.
Whiteman, Honor, Jan. 13, 2014. Caffeine may boost long-term memory. Medical News Today. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270963.php.
February 28, 2014.
Palaroan, Graciel M.
2013-60784
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