Jesse Tice Bio-Lab 4/10/2014

Scientific Article Summary

Effects of caffeine on learning and memory in rats tested in the Morris water maze. Braz J Med Biol Res, October 2002, Volume 35(10) 1201-1208

The substance methylxanthine caffeine is found among many common beverages found throughout the World. It is one of the highest psycho-stimulants used among humans. This makes it one of the more extensively studied drugs. One of these studies was the one that Im writing this article on. They wanted to find out the effect caffeine has on both memory acquisition and memory retention. Scientists have found that caffeine has numerous behavioral stimulant effects. Moderate doses of the drug imply CNS (central nervous system) stimulation, but higher doses seem to suppress it. Whether the dose is administered before or after training it can either assist with memory retention or not have an effect. People that have amnesia many times report finding benefits in memory after taking some caffeine. The test the researchers used to determine the effects on the rats memory was the Morris water maze. The rats were divided into 13 groups of 12 animals each (156 total). The water tank used was round, 170cm in diameter and 70cm deep. The training session consisted of four consecutive timed trials. In these trials the rats were left in the tank facing the wall, and were allowed to swim freely to escape the platform. For each of the experiments the rats were given 3-4 incremental dosages of caffeine dissolved into saline.

In the first experiment, the rats were given the drug before the water maze training. The rats did not do any better or worse. For the second experiment, the caffeine was given immediately after the training session. These rats performed better, but only those that were given the lower doses (.3-10mg/kg). The rats in the third experiment showed statistical significant improvements for those given the lower doses as well. They were given the caffeine just prior to the test. The fourth experiment was the control rats. The study seems to agree with previous studies on humans and other animals, which suggests an improving effect caffeine has on memory. The effect is more apparent when the drug is given after training. This suggests it affects memory consolidation. When caffeine was given before training it was not statistically significant. This suggests that it does not affect working memory and memory acquisition, at least in the Morris water maze task. The rats given caffeine just prior to their test showed a mild improvement in their test time. This suggests that it can help with memory retrieval when given in moderate doses. Due to there not being many studies on the effect caffeine has on memory (especially in higher doses) its hard to extrapolate anything from this study. More research is needed on the subject, especially with its wide use throughout the World.

References: Braz J Med Biol Res. 2002 Oct;35(10):1201-8. Epub 2002 Oct 13. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12424493