Caffeine-related effects on cognitive performance: Roles of apoptosis in rat hippocampus following sleep deprivation.

Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
Guangjing XiePanpan Huang

Abstract

Caffeine is a common stimulant widely existed in food and has stimulatory effects on the central nervous system, shift-work individuals often rely on caffeine to maintain attention and keep awake. Although sleep deprivation (SD) is widely considered as an independent risk factor for cognition retardations, however, little is well understood about the synergistic role of caffeine dosage and SD for cognitive performance. This research intended to investigate the underlying molecular mechanism of varying caffeine doses on cognitive function after sleep deprivation. The results revealed that SD attenuated the cognitive dysfunction, associated with ultrastructure damage and pyramidal neuron loss in the hippocampus, decreased in the level of VIP and AVP. SD also significantly accelerated the neuropeptide-associated apoptosis in the hippocampus, which may modulate via the cAMP-PKA-CREB signal path axis and activation of the downstream apoptosis genes. Additionally, the data indicated that low-dose caffeine (LC) contributed to cognitive enhancement, and high-dose caffeine (HC) aggravated cognitive impairment by modulating hippocampal neuronal apoptosis. Our studies suggest that caffeine, particularly in high dosage, may be a potential ...Continue Reading

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Apoptosis

Apoptosis is a specific process that leads to programmed cell death through the activation of an evolutionary conserved intracellular pathway leading to pathognomic cellular changes distinct from cellular necrosis