Yufen Chen1, Andrew B. Newberg2, Jiongjiong wang1, Hengyi Rao1, Hongyu An3, Joel Greenberg4, Nancy Wintering2, Victoria Tolles2, John A. Detre1
1Center of Functional Neuroimaging, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 2Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 3Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA; 4Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist which affects both blood flow and neural activity. It has been suggested that caffeine could alter the coupling between cerebral blood flow and metabolism. In this study, a combination of FDG-PET and ASL was used to study how caffeine affects resting-state blood flow, glucose and oxygen metabolism. The results show caffeine alters the balance of oxygen and glucose metabolism by significantly decreasing glucose metabolic rate. This change was especially prominent in the anterior cingulate, which may explain how caffeine affects alertness.