Coffee drinkers smarter? Maybe...

Good news for everyone who drinks coffee by the gallon.

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences researcher Serena Dudek says caffeine strengthens nerve cell connections in a small area of the brain, which can explain why those who regularly drink coffee or highly caffeinated energy drinks can gain a temporary boost in mental sharpness.

Dudek’s research team fed caffeine to laboratory rats and found that even at lower doses, caffeine dramatically increased signaling between neurons in an area of the rat hippocampus called CA2. The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is important for forming memories.

To be sure, that does not prove the animals were actually better at learning after consuming the caffeine, but the findings would support that theory, Dudek says.

“Caffeine obviously speeds up the heart rate, so we should keep its cardiac effects in mind before suggesting that anyone take large amounts of caffeine as a cognitive enhancer,” she said.

Dudek, a senior scientist in the Neurobiology Laboratory at the NIEHS in Research Triangle Park, studies how the strength of the connections between the brain’s nerve cells, called synapses, change following exposure to caffeine. She is a regular coffee drinker herself and said that researchers have known for years that caffeine enhances certain kinds of memory and cognition. They just didn’t know exactly which group of nerve cells, known as neurons, was involved.

The findings were published online Nov. 20, 2011, in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

From: bizjournals.com