Young Brains at Risk of Damage from Heavy Drinking

Heavy drinking is especially dangerous for teenagers whose brains are still developing, and alcohol-related damage incurred at a young age can have long-term effects, researchers say.

Problems with memory, learning, and other mental functions have been linked to youth alcohol use by recent research, Reuters reported Feb. 14. A recent review of the research published in the February 2005 issue of the journal Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research by Peter M. Monti of Brown University showed, for instance, that MRIs of young problem drinkers showed that they had higher brain activity levels than their peers during memory tests, but had similar scores. But when researchers ran similar tests of women ages 18 to 25 with alcohol-use disorders, they found less brain activity and poorer scores.

Researchers speculated that the young brain may try to compensate for alcohol damage by using more capacity than normal for certain tasks, but cannot overcome the problem in young adulthood if drinking continues.

Experts are also concerned that youth who drink enough to black out may be harming the area of the brain associated with memory, and that binge drinking may caused brain damage among adolescents that it does not among adults.

Some animal studies have shown lasting changes in the brain's serotonin system as the result of binge-type drinking.

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