Earth.com: Spent coffee grounds can help detect brain activity
UC research provides another reason to love coffee
Earth.com highlighted chemistry research by the University of Cincinnati that examined how used coffee grounds can improve the sensitivity of electrodes that measure brain activity.
UC assistant professor Ashley Ross in UC's College of Arts and Sciences discovered that coating biosensors with coffee grounds improved their sensitivity.
Ashley Ross
“I saw papers about using spent grounds to produce porous carbon for energy storage, and I thought maybe we could use this conductive material in our neurochemistry detection work,” Ross told Earth.com. “And I also thought this would be a good excuse to buy lots of coffee for the lab!”
Microelectrodes are typically made from carbon fiber. Ross said using old coffee grounds could be an effective but green alternative.
For the study, Ross and her chemistry students made porous carbon from coffee grounds that they used to coat electrodes. They found that the coffee-coated electrodes were more sensitive than bare carbon fibers in detecting the neurotransmitter dopamine, allowing researchers to carry out faster measurements.
Ross will present her study's findings at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society, which features 12,000 presentations on a variety of science topics.
Featured image at top: UC researchers found that coffee grounds were effective at boosting the sensitivity of electrodes to study neurochemistry. Photo/Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash
UC College of Arts and Sciences assistant professor Ashley Ross studies bioanalytical chemistry. Photo/Ravenna Rutledge/UC Creative + Brand
More UC chemistry in the news
Ashley Ross and her students discovered that coffee grounds can boost the sensitivity of electrodes to study neurotransmitters. Photo/Ravenna Rutledge/UC Creative + Brand
- Daily Mail (UK): Scientists use coffee grounds to study brain
- Roast Magazine: Spent coffee grounds may someday be used to track brain activity
- Medical Life Sciences News: Waste coffee grounds may help detect minute levels of neurotransmitters
- American Chemical Society: Waste coffee grounds could someday help detect brain waves
Related Stories
UC professor leads film students to the future
April 6, 2026
As a kid, at the age of 10, Marty Schiff’s dad gave him a Kodak Brownie movie camera, and that led to a lifetime of creating stories on film. He spent his summers with that camera, making eight-millimeter movies, with a camera that taught him how to thread a projector, change the film in a closet, and tell stories with the medium he loved. “I always wanted to go to Hollywood,” Schiff says. So later he did, with $200 in his pocket, and began a career that has spanned acting, directing, producing—pretty much everything with the exception of costumes (“I’m not really good with a sewing machine,” he says).
High Court offers protections for therapy speech
April 5, 2026
Jennifer Bard, a professor in the Donald P. Klekamp College of Law and the UC Department of Internal Medicine, spoke with journalists about the US Supreme Court ruling granting first amendment protections for speech offered during therapy sessions.
Scientists discover how snakes stand upright without limbs
April 3, 2026
Smithsonian magazine highlights a study co-authored by UC Professor Bruce Jayne, an expert in snake locomotion, about how snakes stand upright without arms or legs.