Glucose and caffeine
Researchers at the University of Barcelona have demonstrated that a combination of caffeine and glucose (think coffee and pastry) “improves cognitive performance in terms of sustained attention and working memory by increasing the efficiency of the areas of the brain responsible for these two functions.” Earlier research from the same team also “revealed improvements in attention span and declarative memory without significant alteration of the participants’ subjective state,” says Science Daily.
Source: University of Barcelona, via Science Daily
The most interesting finding –apparently obvious in the image above, if you know how to read an fMRI– is that caffeine or glucose on their own don’t do the trick. Only the combination of the two produces the improved performance. (h/t @CharlesMBlow.)
Yes! I just had coffee and a bagel.