The cognitive ramping-up effect of coffee is not a new phenomenon. Hell, itโ€™s not even new to the investigatory eye of the scientific community. You donโ€™t really need at this point for any new research paper to tell you that coffee has a way of increasing brain functioning, it is at this point a known commodity, but still, maybe itโ€™s sometimes nice to hear it anyway?

And if you are so inclined toward such words of affirmation, then good news! A new study has scanned peopleโ€™s brains and found that drinking coffee can boost your brain power.

The new paper, published recently in Natureโ€™s journal Scientific Reports, finds that not only coffee but music as well has such properties. For the study, researchers from New York University and the University of Houston used a new brain-monitoring technology known as Mindwatch, which has been in development for the past six years by NYU Tandonโ€™s Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor and study co-author Rose Faghih. As reported by Neuroscience News, the Mindwatch is an โ€œalgorithm that analyzes a personโ€™s brain activity from data collected via any wearable device that can monitor electrodermal activity (EDA)โ€ and โ€œreflects changes in electrical conductance triggered by emotional stress, linked to sweat responses.โ€

advert but first coffee cookbook now available

 

As part of the test, participants would wear skin-monitoring wristbands and brain-monitoring headbands while being put through what is known as an n-back test. In this cognitive test, participants are given a sequence of sounds or images and then asked to state where a current stimulus is the same as the one presented a given number back in the sequence. For a 3-back test, it would be three places ago in the sequence; for a 5-back test, it would be five, etc. Participants were given the n-back test as a baseline, before drinking coffee or listening to music or smelling perfume, a third thing that they also tested.

Using the Mindwatch, the researchers found that coffee and music โ€œmeasurably altered subjectsโ€™ brain arousal.โ€ In particular, coffee and music were found to promote an increase in โ€œbeta bandโ€ brain wave activity, โ€œa state associated with peak cognitive performance.โ€ Perfumeโ€™s effects were said to be modest in this regard.

Coffeeโ€™s effect was said to be slightly less than that of music, but both saw the largest gains in a 3-back version of the test versus the 1-back. This indicates to the researchers that these stimuli have the greatest effect when the โ€œcognitive loadโ€ is higher.

So there you have it, more proof of something you already know: coffee makes your brain work better. Drink up, jam out, and tune in.

Zac Cadwaladerย is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.