But did they consider that they might not be correctly accounting for the positive effects of alcohol?
But all this other research. I'm using it
for social connections for prevention of dementia thus I'm ignoring the
cons because I think the benefits exceed the cons. But I'm not medically
trained so don't listen to me.
The latest here:
Recent study challenges the view that the negative side effects
of these drugs can be cancelled out when they are taken together.
French novelist Honore de Balzac described coffee’s effect as: “Ideas
begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield,
and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop,
ensign to the wind.” Indeed, caffeine is a brain stimulant used by many
to overcome fatigue and increase productivity. Highly caffeinated drinks
are now commonly consumed together with alcohol, and this work explores
a very current concern: does this counteract the negative effect of
alcohol on memory?
A study recently published in
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
indicates that despite its impact on alertness and concentration,
caffeine cannot counteract the memory deficits that result from alcohol
consumption.
“Our results in mice show that even at low doses that do not change
social behavior, alcohol causes amnesic effects. This, in turn, was
found to not be counteracted by caffeine consumption,” says Dr Laura
López-Cruz, first author of the study undertaken at Universitat Jaume I
(Spain) and currently researcher in the Psychology Department of the
University of Cambridge.
“Caffeine and alcohol are known to have common mechanisms in the
brain. However, this finding forces us to question what we do not know
about their biochemistry,” summarizes Lopez-Cruz.
The results draw into question what we know about a key brain
chemical system: the adenosine system. This system regulates sleep,
social interaction and social memory. Consuming alcohol increases the
amount of adenosine present in the brain, inducing sleepiness and
impairing long-term social memory. In contrast, caffeine blocks the
activity of adenosine, increasing alertness and anxiety levels.
Due to opposing physiological and behavioral effects of alcohol and
caffeine, it was expected that caffeine would counteract a key negative
side effect of ethanol ingestion: namely issues with social memory.
People frequently face difficulty with remembering conversations and
other behaviors that have taken place during alcohol consumption, an
affect not reserved to heavy drinkers. Understanding these amnesic
episodes, which pose a risk to personal safety, and if they can be
prevented is therefore of great importance.
The
researchers investigated memory in mice through a social recognition
task, based on the tendency of healthy rodents to prefer exploring and
interacting with other animals from the same species upon a novel
encounter.
Each test animal was initially given either caffeine, alcohol or a
combination, then placed in a chamber with another mouse, stranger to
the test animal on one side, and an object on the other side, for the
test animal to explore during 10 minutes. A day later, when any effects
of the drugs should have worn off, the mice were placed back in the
chamber, but another novel mouse now replaced the object. Hence the
experimental mice were given the choice of interacting with a familiar
mouse from the previous day, or a novel mouse.
“We used the amount of time sniffing each mouse as an index of social
recognition,” Lopez-Cruz explains. “If the mouse remembers the previous
day’s encounter, they should spend more time sniffing the novel mouse.”
When treated with caffeine, mice spent more time exploring a novel
conspecific. In contrast, when a mouse had been treated with alcohol,
they spent equal amounts of time with novel and familiar mice,
suggesting that the drug had impaired their memory. Most notable was the
finding that mice who had been injected with a combination of alcohol
and caffeine also did not differentiate between the novel and familiar
mouse, demonstrating impaired social memory.
Previous research had found that low doses of caffeine did improve
ethanol induced memory impairment. This led Lopez-Cruz and colleagues to
suggest that high doses of caffeine may have more widespread effects
that are not yet fully understood.
As the popularity of highly caffeinated drinks continues to rise,
with 68% of adolescents consuming them according to the European Food
Safety Authority (2011), these results provide an insight into how they
cannot be relied on to balance out the negative effects of alcohol.
