Tier 2 — strong

Single dose creatine improves cognitive performance and induces changes in cerebral high energy phosphates during sleep deprivation

Ali Gordji-Nejad, Andreas Matusch, Sophie Kleedörfer, Harshal Jayeshkumar Patel, Alexander Drzezga, David Elmenhorst, Ferdinand Binkofski, Andreas Bauer

Sci Rep 2024 14(1):4937

Bibliography

PubMed: PMID 38418482
PubMed Central: PMC10902318
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-54249-9
Funding: Study expenses and personnel support were financed by Forschungszentrum Jülich for several investigators and by RWTH Aachen for others; open-access funding was enabled through Projekt DEAL.
Competing interests: Alexander Drzezga disclosed research support, advisory/speaking relationships, stock holdings and a pending imaging-tracer patent; the remaining authors did not report conflicts in the paper.

Study snapshot

Design	Randomized balanced crossover placebo-controlled sleep-deprivation study
Model	Human
Sample	15 healthy adults (8 females), ages 20–28 years
Intervention	Single creatine monohydrate dose 0.35 g/kg versus placebo during overnight sleep deprivation
Duration	Acute; outcomes followed for roughly 8–9 hours after dosing during 21 hours of sleep deprivation
Endpoints	Cognitive performance; Processing speed; 31P-MRS high-energy phosphates; Brain creatine metabolites; Brain pH

What the study showed, in plain terms

Small mechanistic human trial testing whether a high single dose of creatine can offset brain-energy and cognitive changes during sleep deprivation.

Key findings

Creatine altered cerebral high-energy phosphate measures and partially reduced fatigue-related cognitive deterioration, with the largest reported effects several hours after dosing.

What this study can and cannot tell us

Only 15 young healthy participants were studied, the dose was much higher than routine daily supplementation, and the sleep-deprivation context limits generalization.

Citation network

Articles citing this research paper

1 article

Biohack Blueprint analyses that reference this study in their evidence base.

Oct 2, 2026 Creatine Brain Benefits: Memory, Cognition, Sleep Loss and What Is Still UncertainCreatine and the brain: evidence for memory, attention, processing speed, older adults and stressed states—plus why recent systematic reviews disagree.Read analysis

Editorial review

Reviewed by the Biohack Blueprint research team

Last verified 02 October 2026

Dr. Khaled Mahmoud, MBBChCritical Care Medicine, Longevity Science & Editorial Direction