It’s coffee time: Caffeine across a range of concentrations is not associated with higher heart rates in Daphnia magna

Abstract

There are many factors that can affect the contractibility of cardiac muscle, such as exposure to stimulants such as caffeine. Using Daphnia Magna as models, we exposed them to different concentrations of caffeine to study the change in heart rate contractibility by determining their heart beats per minute. We used two experimental groups, one control group, and three trials were run for each group to accurately compare the difference in heart rate. Our results showed that there was no significant increase in the heart rate in Daphnia as the concentration of caffeine was increased. Our experiment studies not only the effects of caffeine but also the effects of different concentrations on Daphnia’s heart rate, separating it from previous research. Knowing this could greatly benefit the engineer of synthetic cardiac muscles and their ability to maintain a consistent heart rate when exposed to stimulants.