--- title: Soda May Impairs Memory in Young Rats, Study Says description: Soda is on the mind. A new small study in rats found that drinking sugary beverages may result in memory issues down the line. University... canonical: https://time.com/3057373/heres-what-soda-does-to-young-rats-brains/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-30T13:42:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T09:24:49.912Z article:section: Health og:title: Here's What Soda Does to Young Rats' Brains og:description: Soda is on the mind. A new small study in rats found that drinking sugary beverages may result in memory issues down the line. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 30, 2014 1:42 PM UTC by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 30, 2014 1:42 PM UTC Soda is on the mind. A new small study in rats found that drinking sugary beverages may result in memory issues down the line. University of Southern California researchers looked at adult and adolescent rats, and feed them sugary beverages (meant to mimic soda) for a month. After a month, the rats completed tasks that assessed their cognitive function and memory. The adult rats had no problems, but the adolescent rats who had been drinking sugary beverages had impaired memory and trouble learning. The findings are being presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), and are preliminary. The researchers plan to explore whether the soda is causing inflammation in the brain’s hippocampus, which is the region of the brain involved in memory and learning. Though the research has not been done in humans, it’s part of a growing body of work looking at the risks of soda. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3057373/heres-what-soda-does-to-young-rats-brains/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3057373/heres-what-soda-does-to-young-rats-brains/"},"headline":"Here's What Soda Does to Young Rats' Brains","datePublished":"2014-07-30T13:42:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T09:24:49.912Z","description":"Soda is on the mind. A new small study in rats found that drinking sugary beverages may result in memory issues down the line. 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