It's official: Caffeine improves memory - Reuters

For the first time, a study presented “compelling evidence” that caffeine consumption is beneficial for memory.

Published in the edition of January 12, 2014 in the journal ‘Nature Neuroscience’, the study shows that consuming caffeine can improve memory and have a beneficial effect on capacity retention for up to 24 hours after consumption.

Research is considered an ‘exclusive proof’ that caffeine benefits to long-term memory because all involved participants took one tablet of 200mg of caffeine after seeing a series of pictures.

This change in the method of the experiment ruled out the possibility of improved due to an increase in alertness, concentration or attention (effects caused by caffeine) memory.

Participants were chosen from people who do not regularly take caffeinated drinks. The volunteers were divided into two groups.

Each person saw the same set of photographs and then took a pill, but a group participants took 200mg of caffeine while the other was a placebo pill. The caffeine levels in the blood were measured after one, three, and 24 hours after taking the tablet.

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Both groups attended a second set of photos with some images very similar to those of the previous set, the participants had seen 24 hours earlier, and some very different photos.

In the end, most members of the group who took caffeine could distinguish between ‘similar’ images and the images ‘different’.

This behavior, explain the researchers, involves a ‘higher level of memory’, called ‘separation standards’. The effect of improvement in memory associated with the consumption of caffeine lasts up to 24 hours after consumption.

Scientists have determined that all memory involves the hippocampus, located in the temporal lobes of the brain, but is yet to determine the exact mechanism by which caffeine interferes with our ability to hold.

The study is a team of researchers led by Michael Yassa, assistant professor of Psychology and Sciences of Brain Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

The authors stress that the findings of this study should not be an excuse for consuming extreme amounts of caffeine, according to the Examiner.