Morning coffee's effects may be placebo, study suggests
Coffee is often thought to make you feel more alert, so people drink it to wake themselves up and improve their efficiency. Portuguese scientists studied coffee drinkers to understand whether the wakefulness effect is dependent on the properties of caffeine, or whether it’s about the experience of drinking coffee.
The scientists recruited people who drank at least one cup of coffee daily and asked them to refrain from eating or drinking caffeinated beverages for at least three hours before the study. They interviewed the participants to collect sociodemographic data and then did two brief functional MRI scans: one before and one 30 minutes after either taking caffeine or drinking a standardized cup of coffee. During the functional MRI scans, the participants were asked to relax and let their minds wander.
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