Surprising effect of caffeine on the brain

12:12 PM

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Consuming a large amount of caffeine every day can suppress the brain’s ability to renew itself.

According to the “Russia Today” website, an analysis of two studies conducted by researchers from the Center for Neuromodulation Research at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, revealed a surprising effect when consuming caffeine on a daily basis on the health of the brain, indicating the suppression of its ability to renew itself, after analyzing signals. The brain associated with learning and preserving memories in 20 individuals.

Caffeine has a reputation for providing a boost of alertness, thanks to its ability to block adenosine, a chemical in the brain that helps overcome sleepiness. Adenosine also affects a process called long-term potentiation (LTP), which in simple terms means how neurons in The brain strengthens the connections between them – believed to be crucial for the brain to receive new information and adapt over time.

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A group of 16 people who drank between one and five caffeinated drinks per day, and four people who drank a lower dose of caffeine, underwent a brain stimulation procedure designed to simulate the readiness for learning in the brain, which is called repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, or rTMS. The team looked for signs of electrical impulses in the nervous system as a way to measure LTP. For those who did not drink caffeinated beverages, the effects of LTP seemed significantly stronger.

According to the researchers, regular stimulation from caffeine may cause an antagonistic effect in the brain, which may explain lower levels of plasticity – but this is just a hypothesis at the moment, and there are caveats about only 20 people participating in this research.

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The review also relied on self-reported caffeine doses, which means that researchers cannot know how different doses of caffeinated beverages actually affect long-term suppleness. However, the review was an experimental investigation aimed at informing future hypotheses. .

The researchers intend to investigate further through future, rigorous, well-controlled studies, where the timing and dose of caffeine intake are strictly regulated prior to testing. The researchers say this would provide “a better estimate of central nervous system bioavailability and its association with plasticity responses.”

“A better understanding of how caffeine alters the underlying mechanism of learning and memory, as well as the potential impact of caffeine on rTMS clinical effects, deserves further attention,” the researchers wrote.