The effects of Caffeine on Attentional Networks

This study will will address the gaps in the literature by exploring the underlying neural correlates of an acute dose of caffeine using both an attentional network task and a flanker Go/NoGo task. Specifically, caffeine is expected to improve the alerting and executive control networks of attention, but not the orienting network. For the attentional network task, it is hypothesised there will be a reduction in reaction time and an increase brain activity (N1 amplitude) following alerting (central) but not orienting (spatial) cues after caffeine ingestion in comparison to placebo. For the flanker go/nogo task, it is hypothesised that Reaction Time and brain activity (N2 amplitude) will be greater for incongruent relative to congruent trials, and that this flanker interference effect would be reduced from pre- to post-ingestion for caffeine relative to placebo.