Weekly Roundup: Caffeine and Effective Brains, Your Brain Anticipates the Future During Rest, Late Sleep is Bad Even for Your Owls, and Low-Light Boosts Brain Connectivity

Originally published on my Substack
100% conceived and written by a human being, Andy.

I’ve seen so many interesting research papers this week I almost couldn’t decide what to write. But let’s stick to some topics I’ve covered previously such as a favourite of mine reporting on the, mostly positive, effects of caffeine. But also sleep, how your brain practises during rest, and low-light therapy boosts brain connectivity.

Caffeine Boosts Efficiency

That sounds like a really nice title — however, there is one big caveat. Wait for it, wait…this study was in ants only. “What!”, I can here you shout, “Ants, how on earth can this be applied to my human coffee habits!?”. But bear with me — the research is still interesting.

In this study, by Henrique Galante et al., ants were given either “snacks” laced with caffeine or simple sugary snacks. The surprising outcome was that those who had the caffeine-laced snacks basically became more effective in navigating i.e. they navigated back to their nest quicker and more effectively. This suggests that the…