Photo: pixabay.com
How the brain changes in coffee drinkers
–
–
With the help of MRI, it was possible to establish how regular coffee consumption affects the connections in the human brain.
An international team of scientists for the first time described in detail the changes occurring in the brains of people who regularly consume coffee. The results of their work were published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
–
As you know, coffee improves attention, increases indicators of general motor skills, learning and memory. Caffeine leads to the excitability of the central nervous system, increases physical endurance, and normalizes the level of anxiety.
At the same time, the neurobiological reasons for these effects have not yet been studied in detail.
Specialists from the medical faculty of the Portuguese University of Minho, along with colleagues from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, used functional magnetic resonance imaging technology for the first time to compare the activity of brain connections in people who drink coffee every day and those who do not drink it at all.
The first group included 31 people, the second – 24.
The study found that coffee drinkers have a stronger connection between the thalamus and the cerebellum, which is responsible for motor control.
In addition, they showed increased dynamic activity between several cerebellar and subcortical regions – the cerebellum, striatum, thalamus, parahippocampal, lingual and inferior occipital gyri.
According to the researchers, this activity explains effects such as increased focus and attention, as well as improved learning and memory.
It is emphasized that the same structural changes in brain connections were observed in those who usually do not drink coffee, shortly after they drank a cup of the drink. From this it can be concluded that the changes caused in the brain by caffeine are likely to be of short duration.
News from Correspondent.net in Telegram. Subscribe to our channel https://t.me/korrespondentnet
– .
