Coffee doesn’t only make us feel more awake. Scans reveal it helps improve connection between areas of the brain that control motor control and alertness.
It’s the first time the brains of coffee drinkers and non-drinkers have been compared by using fMRI scanning technology—and there really is a difference, at least according to research funded by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee.
Researchers at the University of Minho in Portugal scanned the brains of 37 people who drank coffee every day and 24 non-coffee drinkers while they were resting and performing a task.
The coffee-drinkers showed signs of better connections between areas of the brain that controlled motor control and alertness, reduced mind-wandering, and improved levels of attention and focus.
Interestingly, the same connections were seen in the brains of the non-drinkers when they drank a cup of coffee, suggesting the effects happen very quickly after drinking.
Similar results have been witnessed by other studies, but the new study is the first to observe the physical changes happening in the brain.
(Source: Molecular Psychiatry, 2021; doi: nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01075-4)
