Caffeine consumption disrupts hippocampal long-term potentiation in freely behaving rats.

Caffeine, one of the most commonly consumed psychoactive substances in the world, has long been known to alter neurological functions, such as alertness, attention, and memory. Despite caffeine's popularity, systematic investigations of its effects on synaptic plasticity in the brain are still lacking. Here we used a freely behaving rodent model of long-term potentiation (LTP), a frequently studied form of synaptic plasticity, to assess the effects of caffeine consumption on hippocampal plasticity.