A coffee a day may strengthen memory function, study finds (VIDEO)

Preparing for an exam tomorrow? Drink a strong cup of coffee after studying your notes today and you may find your memory retention improves.

That, at least, is what researchers from the John Hopkins University have found, according to the results of a study just published in Nature Neuroscience.

“We’ve always known that caffeine has cognitive-enhancing effects, but its particular effects on strengthening memories and making them resistant to forgetting has never been examined in detail in humans,” Michael Yassa, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University, was quoted as saying.

During the study, 160 participants were shown a series of images of everyday objects, such as a rubber duck or an office chair, and were then given either a 200-milligram caffeine pill – the equivalent of a strong cup of coffee — or a placebo. 

Twenty-four hours later they were shown another set of images and asked to identify the ones they had seen the day before. The tricky part was that some of the pictures were slightly different.

The results showed that the people who took the caffeine pill were better than their non-caffeinated counterparts at identifying the images that were similar but not the same as the ones they had seen the previous day. 

The research is important because it shows “for the first time a specific effect of caffeine on reducing forgetting over 24 hours,” Yassa said.

“Almost all prior studies administered caffeine before the study session, so if there is an enhancement, it’s not clear if it’s due to caffeine’s effects on attention, vigilance, focus or other factors.

“By administering caffeine after the experiment, we rule out all of these effects and make sure that if there is an enhancement, it’s due to memory and nothing else.”

But the quantity of caffeine is important, the researcher said. More than 200 milligram of caffeine and the brain might be too agitated to consolidate memories. Too little and there may be no effect at all.

For more on the study, check out this interview with Yassa posted by John Hopkins University on YouTube.