A Possible Perk for Coffee Addicts: Better Long-Term MemoryResearchers have provided another reason to embrace our coffee addictions, with a new study suggesting caffeine may improve long-term memory.
ByLaura Entis•
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There are already plenty of reasons to keep your caffeine addiction alive and kicking: habitual coffee drinkers are less likely to die of heart failure as those who don't indulge, and research has suggested that caffeine may helpprevent cancer, diabetes,stroke, and Parkinson's disease.
But the stimulant's most important perk is intuitive: it boosts both short-term memory and focus, energizing us when we should, by all rights, be asleep at our desks.
And now there's another reason to grab your morning cup of coffee: A recent study published in the journalNature Neurosciencesuggests thatcaffeine may also boost our long-term memory.
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whi的研究人员进行了一项双盲试验ch they gave participants 100 to 300 milligrams of caffeine five minutesafterthey looked at a series of images. The next day, the group who received 200 (the equivalent of one strong cup ofcoffee) or 300 milligrams of caffeine were able to more accurately identify whena picture was similar, but a little different, from the one they had seen before.
While the results are a little murky (the group who received the placebo performed better than those who only received 100 milligrams of caffeine), the study's authors still suspect they're onto something.
"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," Yassa, senior author of the paper, toldJohnsHopkins'news network. "We report for the first time a specific effect of caffeine on reducing forgetting over 24 hours."
