Impact of Taurine and Caffeine on the Cognitive Performance of Healthy Older Adults

Energy drink manufacturers imply that the addition of caffeine and taurine will enhance cognition; however, these claims have only been studied in young healthy adults.The goal of the present experiment was to examine whether oral administration of taurine, or a combination of taurine and caffeine (ingredients found in most energy drinks) would have a beneficial impact on the cognitive functions most susceptible to the effects of normal aging: processing speed, working memory and attentional capacity.Sixteen healthy older individuals (57 -82 years) were tested using a double-blind, within-subjects experimental design with four conditions (taurine/caffeine, caffeine only, taurine only, and a placebo drink), and two cognitive tasks (N-back working memory/processing speed task and Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) attentional task).Results show that administration of caffeine significantly enhanced performance in the N-back task, but that performance was significantly reduced following taurine/caffeine administration when task demands were high, in both the N-back and RSVP tasks.The results suggest that any beneficial effects energy drinks have on cognitive performance, may be due to the presence of caffeine, and that the addition of taurine may actually attenuate the effects of caffeine if cognitive task demands are high.