Coffee review

Coffee sharpens the mind

Published: 2024-11-08 Author: World Gafei
Last Updated: 2024/11/08, Most caffeine addicts will tell you that coffee sharpens the mind. It turns out that feeding rodents a dose of caffeine does strengthen brain cell connections in an underunderstood part of the brain, scientists report on the website of the journal Nature Neurology.

A better understanding of the effects of caffeine on the brain allows scientists to use its stimulation and even relieve some symptoms of brain diseases.

Serena Dudek of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and her team studied the effects of lower doses of caffeine on an area of the hippocampus. In the human body, this hippocampal structure is hidden deep in the brain behind the ear. The team fed rats caffeine equivalent to two cups of coffee that people drank, and then measured the intensity of electrical signals from nerve cells in this part of the brain. Nerve cells in this particular part of the brain, known as CA2, are so stimulated by coffee that their electrical activity increases when the researchers stimulate them. Nerve cells in a neighboring area of the hippocampus do not show this kind of stimulus sensitivity.

And the greater the dose of caffeine, the stronger the effect. Nerve cells in the CA 2 region responded more strongly to a dose of 10 times higher caffeine, a dose that only stubborn caffeine consumers reached.

The researchers found that exposing CA2 nerve cells in a petri dish to caffeine had a similar effect, a result that ruled out changes in blood flow after exposure to caffeine. After 5 minutes of exposure to caffeine, these nerve cells were stimulated for 3 hours.

"We don't know what the human condition is, but among rodents, we think this area is the most sensitive to caffeine," Dudek said. "

0