Many people have a habit of drinking coffee to start the day. However, scientists believe that the effect of caffeine is not only to help stay awake but also to support memory protection in sleep deprivation conditions.
Research by scientists at the National University of Singapore shows that caffeine can help prevent and even reverse memory decline due to lack of sleep in mice. The research team focused on the CA2 region of the hippocampus, an area that plays an important role in social memory, i.e., the ability to recognize individuals they have encountered.
The results showed that mice with sleep deprivation faced obvious difficulties in identifying familiar individuals. However, the group of mice who were regularly supplemented with caffeine for a week before experiencing sleep deprivation did not have this ability reduced.
Experiments also show that when caffeine is applied directly to brain tissue of sleep deprived mice, nerve signal transmission activity in the CA2 region is improved. According to Lik-Wei Wong - a physiologist at the National University of Singapore, sleep deprivation not only causes fatigue but also disrupts important nerve circuits related to memory.
He said that caffeine can reverse these disorders at both the molecular and behavioral levels. This shows that the benefits of caffeine can go far beyond the role of helping to stay awake as usual.
Researchers believe that lack of sleep increases the signal of adenosine, a chemical that promotes sleep but at the same time impairs the activity of nerve circuits related to memory. Caffeine is known to have the ability to inhibit this signal, thereby helping to maintain brain activity.
However, the research team noted that the results are currently limited to experiments on mice. The findings need to be further verified in humans to accurately assess the impact of caffeine on memory in sleep deprivation conditions.
The study also opens up a new approach in understanding the link between sleep deprivation and the risk of dementia. Some previous evidence suggests that coffee habits can help reduce this risk, and the new study contributes to clarifying the biological mechanisms involved.
