Surprising study finds your morning coffee could be changing your brain

A steaming cup of coffee seems to recharge you for the day ahead, but a study has found that it may also be silently shrinking your brain. A research aiming to discover the impact of daily caffeine consumption on the brain brought to light some surprising findings. It has emerged that your daily cuppa may be reducing the volume of gray matter in your brain. However, earlier studies have also suggested that coffee in fact protects your brain from several degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease. So what's the truth? Let's find out.

The findings of the study highlight that caffeine may trigger temporary neural plasticity, something that researchers thought worthy of further investigation.

Difference between grey matter and white matter

The grey matter of the brain is where the processing of sensation, perception, voluntary movement, learning, speech and cognition takes place. On the other hand, white matter facilitates communication between different grey matter areas and between grey matter and the rest of your body.

The past research about the impact of caffeine on brain has brought forward mixed findings.

What the earlier research has said

Research has suggested that coffee has neuroprotective properties that may reduce the risk of cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases like dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, and stroke. A Cureus research suggests that higher daily coffee intake offers greater benefits, mainly due to caffeine blocking adenosine receptors in the brain. Other compounds, like chlorogenic acids, also show therapeutic potential. While research is promising, further studies are needed to confirm coffee’s exact effects on brain health.

Earlier research has also pointed out that caffeine consumption may be associated with acute reductions in gray matter volume. A study published in Frontiers in Nutrition seconds this.

This 2021 research published in journal Cerebral Cortex aimed to investigate the effects of caffeine on gray matter volume in young and healthy subjects.

The researchers also wished to find out if caffeine's impact on gray matter is as a result of its effect on sleep or not, a sleep deprivation or disruption is also linked to acute reductions in gray matter.

How the study was carried out

Twenty people were divided into groups and over a period of 10 days, one was given caffeine tablets every day while the other were on placebo tablets.

At the end of the study, the gray matter volume was measured through fMRI, and slow-wave sleep activity was measured through EEG.

It was discovered that the gray matter was significantly reduced in people on caffeine after 10 days while those who were on placebo didn't witness the reductions.

Additionally, the study also found no difference in slow-wave sleep activity between the placebo and caffeine periods.

The researchers concluded that the reductions in gray matter were not related to sleep disruptions but perhaps a distinct side effect of caffeine.

Caffeine impacted the right medial temporal lobe, the area of the brain that included the hippocampus and is responsible for memory functions and spatial cognition.

“The changes in brain morphology seem to be temporary, but systematic comparisons between coffee drinkers and those who usually consume little or no caffeine have so far been lacking," Carolin Reichert, an author on the 2021 study from the University of Basel noted.

“Our results do not necessarily mean that caffeine consumption has a negative impact on the brain,” stressed Reichert. “But daily caffeine consumption evidently affects our cognitive hardware, which in itself should give rise to further studies.”