Report: Coffee serves as a memory enhancing drug

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University said that caffeine can now be seen as an aid to long-term memory.

17:03 13 January 2014

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have conducted a study and concluded that caffeine is an aid to long-term memory.

In their study, the researchers used image recall as the basis of their work.

Michael Yassa, the assistant professor of neurobiology at the university explained: “We showed them pictures on a computer screen and we asked them to make a simple decision whether these pictures were indoor pictures or outdoor pictures.

“It didn't really matter what the picture was or what they said, we just wanted to get them engaged in a task and sort of encode these images.

“We wanted them to learn these images without actually telling them it is going to be a memory test afterwards and then we either gave them a caffeine pill, 200 milligrams of caffeine, or a placebo and we sent them on their merry way.”

“On the test, some of the visuals were the same as those from the day before, some were new additions, and some were similar but not the same. More members of the caffeine group were able to correctly identify the new images as 'similar' to previously viewed images rather than erroneously citing them as the same.”