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For some people, it’s somewhere between the third or fourth cup of coffee when they begin feeling human. While people commonly guzzle a cup of joe to perk up, it turns out caffeine can do more than simply wake people. Researchers found that caffeine helps the brain process positive words faster. 

Caffeine indirectly boosts dopamine transmission—a neurotransmitter that aids in reward-based learning—and Lars Kuchinke, a junior professor at Germany's Ruhr University, suspected this might lead to better acumen with word recognition by enhancing activity in the brain’s left hemisphere, which controls language. Researchers already know that people who consume normal levels of caffeine perform better at basic cognitive tasks.  

To discern whether a link existed between dopamine and word recognition, Kuchinke asked 66 people to participate in a word test. Thirty minutes prior to the study, half of the participants took a pill, containing about 200 milligrams of caffeine, which equals two or three cups of coffee. The other half ingested a placebo. Then the participants watched a string of letters pop up on a computer screen and quickly had to decide whether each was an actual word or not. Researchers have long known that most people have a natural tendency to recognize positive words faster than neutral or negative words.

“Either positive words are better interconnected in the brain and it is, therefore, easier to recognize them or [the brain] receive[s] some kind of 'positive' or rewarding feedback during this process,” says Kuchinke. He also theorizes that negative words might cause the brain to pause, balking at the negative association, meaning a person would not identify it as quickly. 

The caffeinated subjects correctly selected more positive words than the people in the control group. Kuchinke theorizes that when caffeine is added to the body it regulates the dopamine transmission in the regions that control decision-making and word comprehension.  

 “Caffeine may either strengthen connections to regions where positive information and positive feedback are processed so this information is more easily available during the process of word recognition,” he explains. “Or caffeine may simply facilitate the decision process.”

He believes that caffeine specifically impacts the striatum in the basal ganglia, which helps us process positive words and make decisions. But his findings also indicate that dopamine aids in language comprehension.

The findings were published online this month in the journal PLOS One. 

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By Andrew Winner

Wondering if it’s time for another cup of coffee? Just take a look at your iPhone. A new software application from The Pennsylvania State University shows users the optimal time to consume caffeine and when to reach for the decaf.

Dr. Frank Ritter, who created the app along with Dr. Martin Yeh, isn’t trying beat the drum against the country’s coffee habit. Rather, he believes the application’s graphical output presents a novel way for individuals to conceptualize their caffeine consumption.

While it may not kill anyone, caffeine can be a nasty mistress if usage isn’t monitored correctly.

Nervousness and disrupted sleep patterns are just two of the negative consequences of caffeine, with users sometimes becoming so inured to the negative effects of caffeine they aren’t consciously aware of the worsening effects. Additionally, caffeine can have a cumulative effect—too much on Monday could lead to disrupted sleep and grogginess on Tuesday. People attempt to self-correct by increasing their intake on Tuesday, creating a cycle that dramatically affects sleep habits and quality of life.

Caffeine Zone helps individuals understand how long caffeine stays in the system, helping them to avoid such Catch-22s and achieve better sleep.

“Increased levels of caffeine can inhibit normal sleep—at least it does for me,” Ritter said in an e-mail. “A colleague of mine used to talk about using caffeine to fight sleep deprivation, and I think that many of us do that.”

“I have also used the app to avoid caffeine way before a talk so I could have a coffee to hand while giving a talk, and then be able to sleep normally,” Ritter added. “If I had not, I would have had a lot of coffee in anticipation of giving a talk in the afternoon, and would not have gotten rid of the caffeine before bedtime.”

The mobile application prompts users to input their caffeine consumption. Then, using preexisting models of caffeine half-lives, the estimated amount of caffeine in the body is shown on a graph. This allows users to review their caffeine level at a glance – information that could be very useful for those dealing with shift changes at work, for example, or our friends in the Armed Services.

Ritter, of Penn State’s Applied Cognitive Science Lab, was encouraged to study the effects of caffeine by Dr. Susan Chipman with the Office of Navy Research. As one might imagine, the working environment on a submarine lends itself to massive amounts of caffeine intake. Understanding one’s level of caffeine could increase mental acuity and improve quality of life of submariners at sea.

Additionally, the basic platform Ritter created can be extended to monitor different substances. Ritter is also hoping to make caffeine half-life a changeable parameter in the app to account for those who “caffeine” differently.

“This started as an experiment in understanding caffeine and how to deliver and work with mobile apps, but it has grown more than we thought it would,” Ritter said. “We have gotten numerous suggestions from this process and a lot of encouragement.”

With an estimated 80-90 percent of the North American population consuming some amount of caffeine daily and a per-capita usage rate of 280 milligrams for adults, it’s important for the general population to understand the effects of caffeine.

Ritter hopes the app will help educate the public on when a hit of caffeine can improve mental function—and when it can do more harm than good.

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Let this be a lesson to us: A good dose of caffeine may improve editing.

You probably count on your daily jolt of caffeine to wake up your brain and stay sharp all day long. But downing that coffee, tea, cola, or chocolate bar may be giving you a leg up in another unexpected way: It can improve your proofreading skills, according to a new study.

Caffeine seems to enhance performance of some of the brain's complex processes that rely on the right hemisphere, such as extracting meaning from language that's written or spoken, says study author Tad Brunye, a senior cognitive scientist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Natick, Mass. "And you don't need excessively large doses to do so," he explains.

In the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, researchers asked 36 college students who consumed low levels of caffeine -- about a half-cup of coffee a day -- to do a "language task." The students were given 5 minutes to read a one-page news story, and needed to identify and correct as many spelling and grammatical mistakes as they found in that time.

Forty-five minutes before taking the proofreading test, students were randomly given a capsule containing one of four doses of caffeine: none, 100 milligrams (the amount found in 8-ounces brewed coffee), 200 milligrams (found in 16-ounces coffee), or 400 milligrams (found in 20-ounces of coffee).

In a second study, researchers repeated the same experiment with 38 college students who consumed higher levels of caffeine each day. The java junkies typically had at least 300 milligrams of caffeine daily, roughly three 8-ounce cups of joe.

Caffeine only seemed to make a difference in the student's ability to spot and fix "complex global errors." These were mistakes in subject-and-verb agreement (for example, billionaire inventor Tony Stark enjoy a lavish lifestyle) and verb tense (for example, customers were misled into believing they had got approved for low interest loans).

The low-caffeine crowd was best at finding and correcting these grammatical goofs at 200 milligrams of caffeine. But it took more in the highly caffeinated -- 400 milligrams -- to achieve the highest detection rates.

Interestingly, caffeine didn't affect the students' skill at finding and correcting misspelled words. And it had no effect on noticing mistakes in words that sound alike, such as weather and whether or seams and seems.

"Individuals who habitually consume caffeine on a daily basis are less likely to benefit from caffeine's performance advantages without upping the dose," Brunye says.

So if you're great at finding the grammatical mistakes that occasionally occur in Body Odd posts, we'll assume your caffeine has kicked in.

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If you’re one of those people who can’t start the day without a jolt of java, the mere thought of decaf is probably enough to put you to sleep.

But a new study suggests you really needn’t worry that your favorite breakfast hangout one day will accidentally put decaf in the caffeinated carafe. As long as you think you’re getting the high-octane stuff, you’re likely to respond accordingly. You’ll feel happier and mentally sharper, the same as if you’d actually downed a dose of liquid lightning.

In other words, caffeine is in the mind of the drinker -- not necessarily his or her cup.

To investigate the power of this placebo effect in coffee drinkers, University of London researchers enlisted the help of 88 students, ages 18 to 47, who drank at least a couple of cups of caffeinated coffee a day. The scientists told the students only that they were studying the effects of caffeine on mood and brainpower.

The students were divided into four groups, each consisting of 11 men and 11 women.

People in two of the groups were given a cup of caffeinated coffee to drink, although one of those groups was told their coffee was decaf. 

People in the other two groups were given a cup of decaf, although the researchers told one group that they were getting caffeinated coffee.

The students drank their coffee in five minutes and then chilled for 55 before taking tests to evaluate mood and brainpower.

You know where this is going. Turns out that both drinking caffeine and the mere belief that they had drunk caffeine improved the students’ attention and the speed at which they could perform a card-sorting task, a measure of psychomotor function.

In addition, while students in all four groups reported feeling more depressed over the course of the testing, those who drank or thought they drank caffeine didn’t feel as glum as the others.

Expecting to drink caffeine and actually drinking caffeine did not have a synergistic effect, though, as some previous research has found.

Now, the scientists, who published their findings in the journal Appetite, aren’t suggesting that you could stroll into Starbucks and order a decaf espresso and feel the same lift you get from your regular caffeine fix. See, the placebo effect doesn’t work if you’re onto it.

But if your partner’s caffeine intake is keeping him or her up at night, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to secretly do the old switcheroo at home. Just make sure you dispose of the bag or jar or whatever your coffee comes in.

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Your coffee habit may be helping to protect your brain.

For years we’ve been told that caffeinated coffee was bad for us. It’s unhealthy and addictive, doctors warned. But as vindication for all who stuck by their energizing elixir, a new study shows that guzzling caffeinated coffee may actually be good for our brains. In fact, it may help keep Alzheimer’s at bay.

The study, which was published early online in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, was in mice whose DNA had been tweaked to contain a human Alzheimer’s gene. Just like humans with familial Alzheimer’s, these mice become increasingly forgetful as they age.

Amazingly, the equivalent of four to five cups of caffeinated coffee every few days led to much improved memories in the Alzheimer’s mice, says study co-author Gary Arendash, a scientist at the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in Tampa.

Earlier research by Arendash and his colleagues showed that caffeine could at least partially block the production of beta amyloid, the sticky protein that clogs the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. They also found that a substance called granulocyte-colony stimulating factor, or GCSF, sparked the production of new axons, the communication cables that link nerve cells together, as well as new nerve cells themselves.

What’s really interesting is that caffeinated coffee -- but not decaf -- boosted the production of GCSF. 

For the new study, Arendash and his colleagues “treated” healthy mice and Alzheimer’s mice with either caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee. Then the researchers ran a test to see if either beverage led to better memories.

The test they used mimics one that is given to humans to diagnose Alzheimer’s. In that test, people are given a bag of objects to look through (we’ll call that Bag A). And then they’re shown another bag of objects (Bag B). Later on, they’re asked to remember what was in Bag A.

Studies have shown that people with Alzheimer’s have a tough time remembering what was in Bag A because the distraction of looking through the objects from Bag B gets in the way of storing the contents of A in their long term memories. That’s generally not a problem for people with healthy brains.

The two part mouse test involved water mazes. The mice has to find -- and remember -- the location of a submerged platform in a tub of water that is deep enough that they need to swim till they find the platform.

After they find the platform in one tub, they’re moved to another tub where they have to find yet another platform. Mice with Alzheimer’s generally have a tough time remembering the location of the first platform when they’re placed in the original tub. But in Arendash’s study, Alzheimer’s mice that got caffeinated coffee had memories that were just as good as those of normal mice.

Lest you dismiss this study because it’s just in rodents, Arendash says he’s got new data in humans. That data is still being analyzed, he says, but so far it looks like caffeinated coffee has the same impact in people as it does in mice.

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