Effects of Caffeine on Behavioural and Cognitive Deficits in Rats

Abstract

There are many studies that have sought to find drug therapies to prevent harm arising from sepsis. Such studies have represented a progress in the support to septic patients and also in the development of new pharmacological alternatives. Our interest was to investigate the caffeine effect on sepsis behavioural and memory impairments. Male rats were anaesthetized and the surgery was made to allow exposure of the caecum, which was then squeezed to extrude a small amount of faeces from the perforation site, which was later placed back into the peritoneal cavity. This procedure, which served to generate experimental sepsis, is herein referred to as ceccum ligation and perforation (CLP). The caffeine (10 mg/kg) was administered by gavage route, once daily, during 7 or 14 consecutive days to investigate the effects of acute or subchronic caffeine treatment on long-term behavioural and cognitive deficits induced by CLP. On the last day, 1 hr after caffeine administration, the animals were submitted to open-field, elevated plus maze (EPM), forced swimming and step-down inhibitory avoidance tests. The results showed that caffeine increased the percentage of open arm entries and open arm time in the EPM test, and reduced the immobility time when compared to the sham-operated group. The caffeine also increased the latency in the inhibitory avoidance test platform. Our results demonstrated that the caffeine improved behavioural changes and improved the neurocognitive deficits of sepsis-surviving animals. It is possible that blockage of the adenosine receptors may be responsible for the results here observed.

Associations Between Caffeine Consumption, Cognitive Decline, and Dementia: A Systematic Review

“…Research in animal models indicates that caffeine can ameliorate cognitive decline [17]. Studies assessing possible mechanisms underlying this effect have suggested that the effects of caffeine on A 2A receptors can control abnormal synaptic plasticity and synaptotoxicity [18,19].…”

Neurobehavioral and neuroprotector effects of caffeine in animal models

“…Caffeine may also reinforce muscular activity and enhance recognition in patients with neurocognitive deficits (Assis et al 2018). Studies with humans have corroborated improvements in performance at work or in sports (Burke, 2008;Cappelletti et al 2015).…”

“…They concluded that chronic caffeine consumption induces behavioral effects similar to those of anxiety, through antagonism of the adenosine A1 and A2 receptors. One of the most contrasting effects of caffeine involves cognition or memory improvement, which is reflected in a greater capacity for attention and enhanced problem-solving (Assis et al 2018). Studies with humans have demonstrated that doses of 0.5-4 mg kg-1 increase cognition by improving performance in problem-solving in working environments in a manner considered dose-dependent (McLellan et al 2016).…”

The surviving sepsis campaign: basic/translational science research priorities

“…Cognitive defects that may be analogous to those present in patients with sepsis have been identified following CLP in rodents. These abnormalities have been attributed to a number of underlying causes, including neuroinflammation, a number of different brain regions, most notably the hippocampus and basal forebrain, and in some cases have been amenable to treatment [28,168,[222][223][224][225][226][227][228][229][230][231]. However, the relevance of these abnormalities to human sepsis is unknown.…”