Impact of Coffee Intake on Measures of Wellbeing in Mice

Coffee intake is increasingly recognized as a life-style factor associated with the preservation of health, but there is still a debate on the relative effects of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. We now tested how the regular drinking of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee for 3 weeks impacted on the behavior of male and female adult mice. Males drinking caffeinated coffee displayed statistically significant lower weight gain, increased sensorimotor coordination, greater motivation in the splash test, more struggling in the forced swimming test, faster onset of nest building, more marble burying and greater sociability. Females drinking caffeinated coffee displayed statistically significant increased hierarchy fighting, greater self-care and motivation in the splash test and faster onset of nest building. A post-hoc two-way ANOVA revealed sex-differences in the effects of caffeinated coffee (<i>p</i> values for interaction between the effect of caffeinated coffee and sex) on the hierarchy in the tube test (<i>p</i> = 0.044; dominance), in the time socializing (<i>p</i> = 0.044) and in the latency to grooming (<i>p</i> = 0.048; selfcare), but not in the marble burying test (<i>p</i> = 0.089). Intake of decaffeinated coffee was devoid of effects in males and females. Since caffeine targets adenosine receptors, we verified that caffeinated but not decaffeinated coffee intake increased the density of adenosine A₁ receptors (A₁R) and increased A₁R-mediated tonic inhibition of synaptic transmission in the dorsolateral striatum and ventral but not dorsal hippocampus, the effects being more evident in the ventral hippocampus of females and striatum of males. In contrast, caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee both ameliorated the antioxidant status in the frontal cortex. It is concluded that caffeinated coffee increases A₁R-mediated inhibition in mood-related areas bolstering wellbeing of both males and females, with increased sociability in males and hierarchy struggling and self-care in females.