Effects of caffeine on performance and mood: withdrawal reversal is the most plausible explanation

Abstract

Appropriately controlled studies show that the effects of caffeine on performance and mood, widely perceived to be net beneficial psychostimulant effects, are almost wholly attributable to reversal of adverse withdrawal effects associated with short periods of abstinence from the drug.

Association of the Anxiogenic and Alerting Effects of Caffeine with ADORA2A and ADORA1 Polymorphisms and Habitual Level of Caffeine Consumption

“…If caffeine was consumed, the adverse effects of lowered alertness and headache were avoided, but even after 100 + 150 mg of caffeine their alertness was not raised above the level of alertness showed by nonconsumers of caffeine (group N) who received placebo (Figure 1, middle panel). This result is similar to that from an early study comparing responses to caffeine of coffee drinkers and abstainers (Goldstein et al, 1969), and is consistent with the claim, supported by a variety of subsequent findings, that regular caffeine consumption provides little or no net benefit for alertness or performance on tests of vigilance (James and Rogers, 2005;Sigmon et al, 2009). Another interpretation could be that frequent caffeine consumers are 'constitutionally' less alert or more fatigued, and they use caffeine to remedy this state of affairs.…”

“…However, although frequent consumers feel alerted by caffeine, especially by their morning tea, coffee, or other caffeine-containing drink, evidence suggests that this is actually merely the reversal of the fatiguing effects of acute caffeine withdrawal (James and Rogers, 2005;Sigmon et al, 2009). That is, little or perhaps no net benefit for alertness is gained.…”

“…These further SNPs were selected according to their potential functional relevance, and to extend the findings of Alsene et al (2003) and Childs et al (2008). A secondary objective of the study was to test the withdrawal reversal hypothesis (James and Rogers, 2005), alluded to above, which predicts that administration of caffeine to frequent caffeine consumers after acute (overnight) caffeine deprivation will increase their alertness, but not to above the level of alertness experienced by infrequent caffeine consumers not given caffeine. In view of the ubiquitous consumption of caffeine worldwide, the potential impact on human well-being of the alerting effects of caffeine and vulnerability to its anxiogenic action is potentially very significant.…”

Dose-Related Enhancement of Mood and Cognition in Smokers Administered Nicotine Nasal Spray

“…More importantly, in the nondeprived condition, nicotine produced modest enhancement of attentional and computational performance beyond baseline. This issue of primary enhancement vs withdrawal relief has been central to the debate on the performance effects of nicotine (Heishman et al, 1994;Hughes, 1991) and other psychomotor stimulants (James and Rogers, 2005;Koelega, 1993). In this study, we tested the same smokers after overnight tobacco deprivation and during ad libitum smoking, which allowed an unequivocal determination that nicotine normalized deprivation-induced deficits and enhanced cognitive abilities in the nondeprived condition.…”

Association between ADORA2A and DRD2 Polymorphisms and Caffeine-Induced Anxiety

“…By selecting these subjects, we minimized variability related to caffeine tolerance, or, if the subjects had been required to abstain from caffeine, caffeine withdrawal. However, some have argued that a sample of light infrequent caffeine consumers is not representative of the general population and that these individuals may be self-selecting due to heightened sensitivity to adverse effects of caffeine including anxiety (James and Rogers, 2005). In fact, both the positive and negative subjective, and also physiological effects of caffeine in the present study were similar to those previously reported in other populations (Evans and Griffiths, 1991;Griffiths et al, 1990;Hughes, 1996) and there was little evidence that these samples were more sensitive to the aversive effects of caffeine (Childs and de Wit, 2006).…”