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Experiment Shows Caffeine Boosts Long Term Memory
An anonymous reader writes "A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins has published results demonstrating that caffeine seems to boost long-term memory. In a double-blind study, participants were shown a series of images soon after taking either a caffeine pill or a placebo; 24 hours later they were tested on a similar, but not identical, series of images. Those who took the caffeine pill were more likely to correctly classify images as being different, identical, or similar to those seen the previous day; researchers refer to this as a 'pattern separation' test. The beneficial effect of caffeine on the long-term memory of honey bees was covered by Slashdot earlier."
Like the health benefits of a couple of alcoholic drinks, there will undoubtedly follow a recommended modest dose, beyond which the diminishing returns corollary overtakes any health benefits.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
As a heavy caffeine user, I confirm that... hmm... erm... what was I saying?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
so *that's* the secret.
Yup, that's the secret. Feed coffee to your computer and you won't need backups any more.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
What, we're hiring scientists with severe ADHD now???
So the article costs $32 to read. It begs the question, what are they hiding?
Most likely nothing. Yes, they could have submitted it to an open-access journal, but when you've a shot at getting something into Nature Neuroscience then most authors will go for it because, bottom line and right or wrong, it's what Universities and Institutions often look at when deciding who to hire and who to fire.
Besides, if you wanted to hide something why would you hide it behind a paywall which a large proprotion of research insititutes probably have access to? You're basically advertising your secrets to anyone who is knowledgeable in the field and has a research job.
The experiment used caffeine during memorization. Does caffeine have any relative effect on recollection?
In other news, caffeinated bees boost long term cardio health for humans running in fear.
The memory center in the human brain is the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped area in the medial temporal lobe of the brain.
Then why don't they call it the seahorsecampus? These guys make everything so difficult.
I have a PhD in sensory neuroscience from UC Berkeley. It could be the effect mentioned in TFA is sensory, not memorization.
Caffeine is known to increase acetylcholine release. Acetylcholine makes your brain pay more attention to here-and-now details than to its internal model of what's going on.
I'm also dubious about the idea that any one, simple chemical can ever make you smarter in any general way without adverse consequences. Evolution has a lot of time to scope out all simple neurochemical effects, so beware studies that suggest they've found a "smart pill". Sure, it's possible to take a drug to make you better at one specific task to the detriment of some others, but the idea that there is any simple cognitive enhancing substance would imply either "evolution couldn't mimic the effect of this substance on the brain" or "cognitive enhancement isn't an evolutionary good move". Neither seems very likely.
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.