The smell of coffee enhances brain activity

Drinking coffee to keep your head clear? Or to enjoy that rich, warm aroma? Mice can alter the activity of genes in their brains simply by smelling coffee, an international team of scientists reports.

Han-Seok Seo and colleagues note that hundreds of studies have been conducted on the health benefits of coffee ingredients, particularly coffee,"but few studies have involved coffee aroma, and this is the first study to show that coffee aroma can relieve stress associated with coffee-induced sleep deprivation."

In experiments with mice, scientists found that coffee aroma stimulated the activity of certain genes and altered their protein expression, helping the mice reduce the stress of sleep deprivation.

To fill this gap, scientists analyzed gene and protein expression in the brains of mice forced to stay awake after inhaling coffee aroma.

Compared with the sleep-deprived mice, the mice exposed to caffeine showed different activity in 17 genes, mRNA expression differences in 13 genes, and beneficial antioxidant activity that preserved neuronal cell stress resistance.

So does the taste of coffee actually alter gene activity in the human brain? The international team of scientists has yet to report.