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"What we are suggesting is a central-governor model," says Ed Chambers, one of the study's co-authors and a researcher at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham. "Ultimately, the brain controls exercise performance by controlling the neural outflow to the exercising muscles...
Chambers decided to test this theory after a 2004 study found that energy drinks enhanced athletic performance even in short periods of physical activity. Intuitively, this makes sense, but physiologically, it doesn't. The human body is capable of generating enough fuel in the form of glucose to sustain itself...
To answer that question, Chambers gathered a couple of dozen competitive and recreational cyclists and put them on bikes in his lab. He asked one group to rinse with a sugar-based drink and another to rinse with an artificially sweetened drink. Then he took a third group of volunteers...
To his surprise, they did not. The sugar-drinking volunteers showed activity in the reward and pleasure centers of the brain, while those drinking the artificially sweetened beverages did not. Chambers suspects that it's this activation of the brain that explains the enhanced performance effect of sugary energy drinks...
Chambers' work supports the idea that the brain plays a critical role in pushing the body to achieve optimum performance. When the mouth tastes sugar, it may anticipate an influx of added fuel and therefore trigger the satisfaction and reward areas of the brain, in turn egging the body on...