Medicine: fMRI for the obvious: caffeine = improved memory, Tweek syndrome

Brain scans confirm what many coffee drinkers already know -- caffeine perks them up.

The caffeine found in coffee, tea, soft drinks and chocolate stimulates areas of the brain governing short-term memory and attention, Austrian researchers said on Wednesday.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans performed on the brains of 15 subjects who had just consumed caffeine equal to that found in two cups of coffee showed increased activity in the frontal lobe where the working memory is located and in the anterior cingulum that controls attention.

“We are able to see that caffeine exerts increases in neuronal activity in distinct parts of the brain going along with changes in behavior,” said Austrian researcher Dr. Florian Koppelstatter of the Medical University Innsbruck.

Participants who were subjected to a 12-hour period without caffeine and a four-hour period without nicotine, another recognized stimulant found in cigarettes, were better able to remember a sequence of letters after consuming 100 milligrams of caffeine. Reaction times on short-term memory tests also improved.

Caffeine also makes you look like Tweek.