In addition to its other well-known effects, a cup of coffee might improve your memory.
Researchers had 73 male and female volunteers who did not habitually consume caffeine study pictures of flowers, musical instruments and other objects. After they were done, 35 of them were given a pill containing 200-milligrams of caffeine — the amount in one to two cups of coffee — and the rest an identical looking placebo. Neither the subjects nor the researchers knew until the study ended who took caffeine and who took an inert pill.
The next day they showed the volunteers more pictures, asking them if they were the same, different, or different but similar to the pictures they had seen the previous day.
Those who had caffeine pills were significantly better at identifying pictures that were different but similar to the ones they had seen the previous day. In other tests, the researchers found that less than 200 milligrams had no effect, and more did not further improve the participants’ scores.
The senior author, Michael A. Yassa, formerly at Johns Hopkins and now an assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine, said that the study, published online in Nature Neuroscience, does not prove that caffeine is a memory pill.
“We don’t even know what the exact effective dose would be,” he said. What will Dr. Yassa himself do? “I’m a regular coffee drinker, and nothing is going to change that.”