Comment · Wed, June 24, 2015 · Ceretropic
Caffeine acts through neuronal adenosine A2A receptors to prevent mood and memory dysfunction triggered by chronic stress (2015)
What they were answering
poppatrunk · 7 points
Anyone able to break that down into English please?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
Stress causes mood and memory issues, and increases the receptor density of excitatory glutamate receptors, while decreasing expression of the glutamate transporter. This means that stress leads to feedback loops in the glutamate system, along with decreased synaptic plasticity, and increased likelihood of depression. Caffeine prevented these effects from happening, by binding to a specific adenosine receptor called A2A. They proved that it was the A2A receptor mediating the effects, because another selective A2A receptor antagonist mirrored the stress/mood protection effects of caffeine.
So essentially caffeine was shown to prevent mood and memory dysfunction caused by chronic stress, by binding to the Adenosine 2A receptors. This is significant because it shows that the A2A receptors are crucial in the deleterious effects of chronic stress.