How much electrical current can pass through caffeine?

I wonder how much electrical current can pass through caffeine? I know that electricity goes through our nervous system and I have a hypothesis that caffeine can make the electricity pass through our nervous system faster. I would like to know if anyone agrees with my theory or not?

[geni]

Looking at the formular I suspect very little (I can't see any obvius way it can ionise)

The problems with your theory are:

a. The levels of caffine in the body should be pretty low even after rather a lot of coffie

b. electricity doesn't really pass through our nervous system (ok it does a bit but that is mostly of secondry significance) nerve signals are propergated by the movment of potassium and sodium ions accros the cell mebrane (this is a massivly simplefied version what really happens is a chapter in a good text book).

Ok. So what happens? I drink some caffeine, so it tends to make me anxious. How many people does caffeine make anxious? Whenever I have caffeine I feel gittery? How many people does this happen to?

Ok. So what happens? I drink some caffeine, so it tends to make me anxious. How many people does caffeine make anxious? Whenever I have caffeine I feel gittery? How many people does this happen to?

I accedentily made two copies of my message. Sorry.

[LFTKBS]

Judging by the near-hysterical nature of your posts, I'd recommend you avoid caffeine.

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ian
Ok. So what happens? I drink some caffeine, so it tends to make me anxious. How many people does caffeine make anxious? Whenever I have caffeine I feel gittery? How many people does this happen to?

Well, if I may politely remark, DUH! That's why I drink it. Of course, around noon I get tired of that feeling, fire up a dube, and once again relax. Of course, around five or six, I get tired of that feeling and pop upon a cold one. Of course, around ten or eleven, I get tired of that feeling so I snooze. Right back where I started. I must be in a rut.

[Aoidoi]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ian
Ok. So what happens? I drink some caffeine, so it tends to make me anxious. How many people does caffeine make anxious? Whenever I have caffeine I feel gittery? How many people does this happen to?

Caffeine is a stimulant. It has a lot of possible effects: increased heartrate, alertness, energy up to anxiety or jittery, depending how much is taken. Dosages affect people differently, I can drink a 2 liter bottle of coke in a day with minimal effect, but I've known people who felt their heart pounding drinking a single can of coke (355 ml).

A quick google turns up:
http://www.anselm.edu/academic/psych...ey/effects.htm
http://www.mckinley.uiuc.edu/health-.../caffeine.html

(I am not a doctor, and do not play one on tv. I would, however, recommend avoiding caffeine if it significantly affects you.)

Edit: note in the first link it mentions that caffeine stimulates part of the brain, that's as much as I know about the "how" of it affecting people.

[rppa]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ian
I wonder how much electrical current can pass through caffeine? I know that electricity goes through our nervous system and I have a hypothesis that caffeine can make the electricity pass through our nervous system faster. I would like to know if anyone agrees with my theory or not?

There's sort of a jumble of different theories there. Your title doesn't seem to have much to do with your theory. As far as signal speed in the nervous system, are you talking about within the brain or actually throughout the body? Throughout the body, I don't think there's any chemical reason why caffeine should have any effect on electrical conductivity. But what it does do is stimulate the brain itself. There the issue isn't so much conduction speed since the distances are short, but production of the signals themselves and the effect on what are called transducers. The wiring isn't actually direct -- signals reach the end of one neuron, and then chemicals carry the signal to the next neuron. A lot of brain chemistry has to do with messing with those transducers, and caffeine is probably one of them.

[jj]

Caffiene seems to change the sensitivity of some neural receptors among other things, making some pathways more likely to fire.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ian
I wonder how much electrical current can pass through caffeine? I know that electricity goes through our nervous system and I have a hypothesis that caffeine can make the electricity pass through our nervous system faster. I would like to know if anyone agrees with my theory or not?

I'm sorry, I know it's not nice to sneer, or make fun of someone's lack of understanding of a complex area like mammalian biology, or stamp on enquiring minds.

BUT THIS IS JUST SO DARN OFF THE WALL THAT WORDS SIMPLY FAIL ME.



Rolfe.

[SquishyDave]

It's OK Rofle.

Ian, allow me to try to help, now I will grossly oversimplify the situation here, because that's all I know.

Your nervous system has a regulation system to keep the nerve traffic from going too fast, think of them as traffic lights, if your nerve system ran too fast, signals would confused, and you wouldn't be able to operate properly, hence, the traffic lights.

Now, caffeine does not soak directly into your nerves, but it does get into your blood, and from there feed your brain cells and possibly your nerves cells too, after all, all cells need a supply of food, so when you are fed this drug, your nerves take this as a signal from the mayor to turn all traffic lights green, well not all but most of them.

Now your nervous system traffic is rushing around too fast, so stuff starts to get confused, you might feel like you have cat like reflexes but you aren't operating quite right, so that explains any side effects.

Now for coffee addicts who have caffeine in their system all the time, the mayor sees that all these traffic lights have turned green, but the mayor, he isn't too smart and he can't order the traffic lights to turn red again, because they are now under the control of the caffeine, so he orders more traffic lights to be built, so now the caffeine addict keeps drinking coffee in order to feel normal because there are too many traffic lights, and without caffeine, the traffic goes far too slow.

Of course if an addict goes cold turkey, they will feel like crap for a while, because their signals take so stinking long to get down town, but after a while the mayor sees that the traffic lights are working again, and takes down the extra ones, and you return to normal.

Now if this is completely false I aplogise, but this is how it was explained to me one time.