The Influence of Exercise and Caffeine on Cognitive Function in College Students

Abstract

Exercise has widely been shown to improve cognition, potentially by making individuals more receptive to sensory stimulation or inhibiting irrelevant information. Caffeine, one of the world's most widely used stimulants, seems to have similar effects. It seems that both exercise and caffeine improve cognitive function separately, but little research has been done examining their combined effects. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of caffeine and exercise, independently and combined, on cognitive function. 20 healthy college students completed the study. These participants were low caffeine consumers. Each participant came to the lab 5 times. During the first session, they completed a graded exercise test on a cycle ergometer to determine ventilatory threshold (VT). The following four sessions were test sessions involving supplementation and exercise. During these, each participant engaged in 30 minutes of cycling (at 90% VT) or 30 minutes of quiet reading after consuming either caffeine (at 4 mg/kg body weight) or a placebo. The Contingent Continuous Performance Task (CPT) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Task were used to measure cognitive function and were completed 5 minutes and 20 minutes after exercise or quiet reading. There were no significant differences found for any variables tested, for condition effect, time effect or condition * time interaction, except for a significant time effect on false alarms on the Contingent CPT (p = 0.017). This study may have been limited by multiple variables including the population, executive function measures, caffeine dosage, or exercise prescription. These findings point to the need for future research to understand the changes in cognition from exercise and caffeine in combination. Future research may include looking at exercise at different intensities, different dosages of caffeine, or looking at the long-term cognitive effects.

Effects of caffeine intake and exercise intensity on executive and arousal vigilance

“…Lastly, regarding caffeine, no significant modulation of executive vigilance by caffeine or placebo ingestion, neither an interaction between caffeine ingestion and exercise, was observed. These results contradict available evidence regarding caffeine effects on vigilance during 29,38 or after exercise 27 , but nevertheless are in line with Shulder et al ' 16 study. The lack of measures during the first 30 min of exercise 29 , caffeine dosage 29,38 , but mostly the attentional task and participant characteristics could explain this controversy.…”

“…A second, and perhaps more solid explanation, is that habitual caffeine intake could influence acute caffeine effects on executive vigilance, as suggested for the effect on the classic attentional networks 31 . In this regard, while Shulder et al 16 and our sample were low (<100 mg/day) or non-habitual (<50 mg/day) caffeine consumers, participants habitually consumed 100-225 mg/day in studies that have found a positive impact of caffeine ingestion on executive vigilance, during or after exercise 27,29,38 .…”

“…However, only a few studies have specifically assessed executive vigilance performance during or after exercise. Furthermore, no consistent results have been observed, with studies showing either a reduction on vigilance performance during heavy loaded walking 15 or no effects on executive vigilance measures after moderate intensity cycling 16 , failing to replicate the positive impact of a pre-task effort observed by Smit et al 13 with a light intensity exercise. Whilst the negative impact observed by Eddy et al 15 could be caused by the special constraints of carrying and balancing a load during 2 hours, it remains to be investigated whether performing different physical efforts and intensities (e.g., light-to-moderate) can benefit executive vigilance and modulate related measures (e.g., sensitivity and response bias).…”

Expectation for stimulant type modifies caffeine’s effects on mood and cognition among college students.

“…Interestingly, this was unique to this assessment, as performance was not otherwise significantly altered with caffeine use on tasks of memory or processing speed. Other studies examining the effect of caffeine on WCST performance have generally found no significant improvement effects at a range of doses (e.g., Franke et al, 2017; Killgore et al, 2009; Shulder et al, 2016), with one study finding improved WCST performance only in light caffeine users reporting consumption below 500 mg per week (Lyvers et al, 2004). Though we do not have data on caffeine in milligrams for participants in the present study, it is likely that the sample was not largely comprised of light users given that average days of past-month caffeine use were 18.25 ( SD = 8.69).…”

The Application of Blended Learning with a Community Science Technology Approach to Improve Student Learning Outcomes in Higher Education

“…Higher education has a sharp spotlight in the world of education because of the responsibility of producing superior and quality graduates [1,2]. The strategic function of universities as higher institutions in the world of education, so that it becomes a big hope to produce graduates who are able to answer challenges [3,4]. The activities of the education implementation process will be a high expectation if they have the ability to learn effectively and efficiently to the ability to develop their capacity [5].…”