Coffee may boost brain’s ability to store long-term memories, study claims

Blog Post #2:
Long- term Memory

This week for my blog, I have chosen an article published by The Guardian that illustrates how long term memory can be affected. Specifically, this article illustrates how caffeine may affect the brain’s ability to store long term memories. According to Ian Sample, science correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, “People who had a shot of caffeine after looking at a series of pictures were better at distinguishing them from similar images in tests the next day”. (Sample, 2014)

In order to study this relationship the scientists collected 44 volunteers who are moderate caffeine consumers that abstained from caffeine for about one day. The volunteers were then shown a sequence of pictures that included a hammer, a chair, an apple, a seahorse, a rubber duck, and a car. The participants were not asked to memorize these pictures, but were to say whether the object was normally found indoors or outdoors. After the completion of the indoor or outdoor task, the participants were randomly assigned either a 200mg caffeine pill or a placebo. The relationship between the caffeine pill and the average cup of coffee is about 50mg more. (Sample, 2014)

The next day the volunteers were brought back to review another sequence of images that included many that they had seen the day before, new ones, and others that were similar. The task was to figure out which was new, old, or similar. The researcher Michael Yassa stated, “The caffeine and placebo groups scored the same except when it came to spotting the similar images.” What caught my attention was how the caffeine group scored around 10% higher than the placebo group when spotting similar images. (Sample, 2014)

I think this article relates to lesson 8, Long-term Memory: Encoding and Retrieval because of the way the study uses imagery and repetition that could possibly prove caffeine could be another factor that influence the process and the strength of our LTM. In my opinion, the study could be improved by having a longer duration, and a larger sample of volunteers.

Sample, Ian. “Coffee May Boost Brain’s Ability to Store Long-term Memories, Study Claims.” Http://www.theguardian.com/. The Guardian, 12 Jan. 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

4 thoughts on “Coffee may boost brain’s ability to store long-term memories, study claims

  1. Wendi Wright-Davis

    Hi Raenisha,

    I was so enthralled with your post about caffeine and long-term memories. In our Lesson 08 on Long–term Memory: Encoding & Retrieval it discusses how information is transferred from STM to LTM by using elaborative rehearsal (Goldstein, 2011). In your blog you mentioned that the group was given sequence of pictures to auditory think of where the objects would be found, indoor or outdoor and not to be memorized. Maybe the objects from the pictures were elaborately rehearsed by just looking around their own homes and relating them to what they saw.

    But the caffeine was given after the study and not before? That is interesting because an article that I read, “Caffeine & Brain Damage” it mentions that caffeine does not accumulate in your body and gets excreted through your urine after several hours (Thorne, 2013). It is more of a quicker pick-me-up. It also mention that it could actually have some positive effects on the brain such that people who regularly consume moderate amounts of caffeine had an inverse correlation to cognitive decline (Thorne, 2013).

    I know that after a long day at work, studying is the last thing on my mind. The first thing I drink on my way home is a 5-hour energy drink. It really does the job because they are primarily caffeine. I am able to stay awake just long enough to get an assignment done or some reading. The effects only last between 4-4:30 hours every time.

    Although caffeine does have some negative side effects as well such as insomnia, nervousness, irritability, increased heartbeat and muscle tremors but that is if someone rinks or consumes more than 500-600 mg a day. That equals to about 8 cups of coffee (Thorne, 2013).

    I enjoyed reading your blog and learning that coffee can have a positive effect on our brain and how it can effect our LTM.

    References
    Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 3rd Edition. Wadsworth, Inc.

    Thorne, R. (2013, Oct. 24). Caffeine & Brian Damage. Retrieved 10 31, 2014, from Livestrong.com: http://www.livestrong.com/article/507912-caffeine-brain-damage/

  2. Rebecca Lynn Wielgosz

    This is a very interesting study! I have looked into this for many years because I am a huge caffeine drinker due to my many jobs and lack of sleep. I did a lot of research just last semester on caffeine for a speech in my public speaking class. Most people think that coffee is the leading form of caffeine, but there is really more caffeine in tea.

    A lot of people say that caffeine doesn’t effect them and that they drink coffee, tea, energy drinks, etc. for their taste and not the for the caffeine result. I sometimes thought that to myself, but then I started paying attention to the way I felt before caffeine intake and how I felt after caffeine intake. I started to notice that my pulse would rise, but didn’t have the result in the way other people describe it. I did not feel energetic and off the walls hyper, but I felt more focused and could concentrate and remember things better.

    I believe that caffeine does have a long term memory effect on the brain. I noticed that while drinking a coffee or tea while studying I had retained the information that I studied much better. I also noticed an improvement in my grades. I also read an article about a study similar to this in where the test group was shown a series of images, and words and then the next day had to state which things were shown the day before. The results were much like this in that they showed a much better percentage of correct answers from the caffeine group rather then the non-caffeine. Awesome article! It relates to many people due to our daily caffeine consumption, keep up the good work!

  3. Brandon R Proctor

    This post really is amazing. If I didn’t know any better I would have though that coffee would impair remembering information in your long term memory especially in situations where your basically operating primarily off of caffeine( e.g. long shifts at work). As mentioned by the post above me, this also reminds me of the cog lab titled false memory. I’ve always been opposed to drinking coffee, primarily because I haven’t acquired a tasted, but after reading your post I may have to consider making a trip over to starbucks the next time I wait until Sunday night to try to do all of my homework =). With a baby due soon and everyone telling me how much sleep I’ll be losing I’ll surely be thinking of this post during the late nights and early mornings. This post is really informative in the fact that other than people thinking the caffeine will simply have you bouncing off the walls, now people will know if you want a little help in the long term memory department a espresso is the way to go.

  4. Brianna Lynn Burns

    Wow! This is so interesting! I would have never thought coffee actually stimulated the brain this way. I know that it is obviously an “energy boost” to people in the morning but never would I have thought it helps the memory processing. In this article however, I am not sure if i like the fact that they only were taken off caffeine for one day. I think lack of coffee for two or three days may have made this research study more interesting to consider! Perhaps their results would have been a little different too.

    I think this research study also relates to our CogLab entry on “False Memory”. Only that they entered another variable which is the caffeine. The fact that the group that had the actual caffeine scored hirer than the placebo is a good detail. I honestly didn’t think the result was going to be any different because until I read the entire post, when I first started reading I was thinking to myself that there is no way this is real! But apparently I was wrong.

    This post kept my attention big time. Even though I don’t think caffeine affects me the same way, it was something that kept my interest and in a way want to go and read up on it a little more because my brain is mush at times anymore with the lack of sleep I get along with the decreased caffeine intake that I have to partake in due to my pregnancy. Keep up the good work hope to read more interesting posts from you!

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