Drinking coffee is a multi-sensory experience. Sight, smell, taste, they all impact how we perceive flavor. But it turns out, coffee may affect our senses, touch in particular.
As reported by The Independent, a study published recently in the journal Clinical Neurophysiology sought to examine “how normal and high doses of caffeine affect a specific brain process” relating to interpreting touch and one’s own body movements.
To do this, they used a method called short-latency afferent inhibition (SAI) whereby a mild electric shock is given to a subject’s wrist followed shortly by sending a magnetic impulse to their brain. The wrist signal enters the brain’s somatosensory area, “and milliseconds later, the magnetic pulse hits the nearby motor cortex to trigger a thumb twitch.”
In order to prevent the twitch, the brain undertakes a “coordinated effort among specific chemical messengers in the brain” that prevents the brain from “overreacting to a single touch” and keeping “movements smooth and controlled.”
To test coffee’s affect on SAI, 20 participants were given either 200mg caffeine or a placebo. They then had magnetic pulses stimulated in their motor cortex to see how the brain responded. They found that the caffeinated participants showed more control of the response to the stimuli.
The researcher’s state this coffee’s “enhanced SAI” could be due to caffeine’s ability to block adenosine receptors in the brain, which in turn increases acetylcholine, a chemical that “helps control how our senses and muscle movement work together.” They also note that these findings could potentially impact our understanding of coffee’s affect on physical movement, with a particular focus on disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
So while drinking coffee is often associated with being jittery, it may actually be quite the opposite and give you better motor control.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
