THE ASSESSMENT OF ATTENTION LEVEL CHANGES AFTER SINGLE CAFFEINE CONSUMPTION

 

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Caffeine is probably the most widely consumed and socially accepted central nervous system stimulant. Nowadays the number of coffee consumption increased, a lot of adults consume caffeine containing products daily to enhance or maintain performance. Caffeine in low and moderate doses improves vigilance and reaction time for rested individuals.

Aim: The objective of the present study was to evaluate changes of attention level after single caffeine consumption in young healthy adults by using Neurosky Attention algorithm.

Methods: We evaluated the changes of attention level in young healthy adults, who normally do not use products containing high levels of caffeine (energy drinks, strong coffee). A task requiring attention was given to the participants. During the task EEG activity, attention level, duration of the task was recorded. For recording we used a frontal lobe EEG from a single-channel dry-sensor recording MindWave® device. The meaning of attention is presented in a scale from 0 to 100.

Results: In this study, we examined 19 participants (n=19): 13 women and 6 men. The average age of all subjects is 23,47 ± 0,90 years. The duration of the task was 8,19 ± 1,53 minutes before caffeine consumption, while the duration of the task after caffeine consumption was 7,20 ± 1,24 (p=0,005). The overall duration of the task after caffeine consumption was shorter for 15 participants and only for 4 participants the task time increased. The average mean of attention during the examination before caffeine consumption was 55,72 ± 6,83, while the average mean of attention during the examination after caffeine consumption was 57,64 ± 10,79 (p>0,05).

Conclusions: Single caffeine consumption had increased the attention level and significantly shortened the overall duration of the task for most participants. The caffeine functioning peak for attention has short-term effects. After single caffeine consumption, there was observed a significant increase of the blood pressure.

Keywords: attention, caffeine, electroencephalography