The effect of acute caffeine ingestion on coincidence anticipation timing in younger and older adults

Abstract

Objectives: This study compared the effect of acute caffeine ingestion on coincidence timing accuracy in younger and older adults. Methods: Thirteen young (aged 18-25 years, age: 20 ± 2 years, 7 females, 5 males) and 13 older (aged 61-77 years, age: 68 ± 6 years, 9 females, 3 males) adults, all who were habitual moderate caffeine consumers undertook measures of coincident anticipation timing performance pre-and post-acute caffeine (3 mg/kg) or placebo ingestion administered in a double blind, randomized fashion. Results: Results indicated significant pre-to-post X substance (caffeine vs. placebo) interactions for absolute (P = 0.02, Pη 2 = 0.204) and variable error (P = 0.015, Pη 2 = 0.221). In both cases, error (absolute or variable) improved pre-to-post ingestion in the caffeine condition but not in the placebo condition. There were no significant differences due to age (younger vs. older adults, P > 0.05) in any of the analyses. Discussion: The results of this study suggest that acute caffeine ingestion positively influence coincidence anticipation timing performance in both younger and older adults, who are moderate habitual caffeine consumers. Such effects might therefore be useful for older adults in enhancing ability to undertake cognitive-perceptual tasks which involve interceptive actions.

The effect of caffeine ingestion on functional performance in older adults

“…Psychological and cognitive based studies have documented a range of improvements following ingestion of 250mg caffeine in older adults, including enhanced simple and choice reaction time performance in 50-65 year olds (11), enhanced reaction time performance in older adults (mean age = 57 years) 60 minutes following ingestion (12) and improved anticipatory timing (10). One suggestion for these results is that caffeine ingestion may reverse the effects of cognitive aging by making greater energy reserves available in older adults (13,14) with some evidence demonstrating that such effects of caffeine ingestion may be more marked in older adults compared to younger adults (11).…”

Validade e confiabilidade de software com realidade virtual como tecnologia assistiva para pessoas com distrofia muscular de Duchenne

“…11 defined coincident timing task as the perceptual-motor ability to execute a motor response in synchrony with the arrival of an external object at a given point. With the objective of measuring the coincident timing, several studies used the Bassin device 12 in people with typical development [13][14][15][16] especially interest with athletes 14,17,18 and some studies with disabled people [19][20][21] .…”