For many people, the day doesn’t really begin until they do the first thing. have a cup of coffee, Many people believe that it is a cup of coffee that makes you feel more alert, efficient and less tired.
intrigue on scientists Portuguese The University of Minho studied coffee drinkers to find out whether the wake-up effect is dependent on the properties of caffeine or whether it is about the experience of drinking the coffee.
Professor Nuno Sousa, who was the lead author of this study, said, “There is a general expectation that coffee enhances alertness and psychomotor functioning.” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience It was titled “Coffee consumption reduces connectivity of the posterior default mode network at rest.”
“When you better understand the underlying mechanism of a biological phenomenon, you open up avenues for discovering the factors that may control it and even the potential benefits of that mechanism.” are,” he explained.
Scientists recruited people who drank the least amount of alcohol a cup of coffee per day and asked them to refrain from eating or drinking caffeinated beverages for at least three hours before the study. They interviewed participants to collect socio-demographic data and then performed two brief functional MRI scans – one before consuming caffeine and one half an hour or so after drinking a standardized cup of coffee. during the ceremony MRI In the scan, participants were asked to relax and let their minds wander.
Because of the known neurochemical effects of drinking coffee, the scientists expected that functional MRI scans would reveal that coffee drinkers had higher integration of networks linked to the prefrontal cortex, which is linked to executive memory and default modes. network, which is involved in introspection and self-reflection processes. They found that the connectivity of the default mode network declined after drinking coffee and after consuming caffeine, indicating that consuming caffeine or coffee made people more ready to switch from resting to working on tasks.
Coffee alone amplified the benefits of caffeine
However, drinking coffee also increased connectivity in the higher visual network and the right executive control network – parts of the brain involved in working memory, cognitive control, and goal-directed behavior. This did not happen when the participants consumed only caffeine. In other words, if you want to feel not only alert but ready to go, caffeine alone won’t do the trick; You need to experience that cup of coffee.
“Acute coffee consumption reduced functional connectivity between brain regions of the default mode network, a network associated with self-referential processes when participants are at rest,” said Dr/Maria Pico-Pérez from Jaume University. , who was the first author. “Functional connectivity between somatosensory/motor networks and the prefrontal cortex was also decreased, whereas connectivity in areas of the higher visual and right executive control networks increased after drinking coffee. Simply put, after drinking coffee the subjects were more ready for action and more alert to external stimuli.
“Taking into account that some of the effects we found were reproduced by caffeine, we might expect that other caffeinated beverages would also share some of the effects,” Pico-Pérez said. “But others were specific to drinking coffee, driven by factors such as the particular smell and taste of the drink, or the psychological expectation associated with consuming that drink.”
Some Limitations of the Study
The authors point out that it is possible that the experience of drinking coffee without caffeine could lead to these benefits. Their study could not separate the effects of the experience alone from the experience combined with caffeine. There is also a hypothesis that the benefits coffee drinkers claim may be due to relief from withdrawal symptoms, which was not tested in this study.