Early caffeine exposure: Transient and long-term consequences on brain excitability

• Early caffeine exposure leads to neurochemical and behavioral responses.
• The anticonvulsant effects of postnatal caffeine are dose- and model-specific.
• Seizure changes depend on age of testing and caffeine treatment period.
• Adenosine system differently affects GABA and glutamatergic system in immature brain.

The influence of pre- and postnatal caffeine treatment on brain excitability during development and adulthood is reviewed. Pre- and postnatal exposure to caffeine induces sex- and age-specific long-term neurochemical alterations in the brain and the behavior of rodents. Because adenosine neuromodulation is closely related to the regulation of brain excitability the increased expression in adenosine receptor system due to neonatal caffeine treatment should cause transient and permanent changes in seizure susceptibility. So far, findings have been focused on primarily developmental changes of the brain adenosine modulatory system and have demonstrated that the alterations are not restricted to a single brain region. Neurobehavioral changes and the anticonvulsant effect of early caffeine exposure are dependent on the caffeine dose, developmental stage of exposure and age of testing. Although outcomes of caffeine treatment are still a matter of debate, our review raise questions concerning the impact of early caffeine treatment on regulation of seizure susceptibility during development and adulthood.