Effects of Alcohol on the Brain

[Chy]

Alcohol affects your brain. Drinking alcohol leads to a loss of coordination, poor judgment, slowed reflexes, distorted vision, memory lapses, and even blackouts.

Alcohol affects your body. Alcohol can damage every organ in your body. It is absorbed directly into your bloodstream and can increase your risk for a variety of life-threatening diseases, including cancer.

Alcohol affects your self-control. Alcohol depresses your central nervous system, lowers your inhibitions, and impairs your judgment. Drinking can lead to risky behaviors, such as driving when you shouldn’t, or having unprotected sex.

Alcohol can kill you. Drinking large amounts of alcohol at one time or very rapidly can cause alcohol poisoning, which can lead to coma or even death. Driving and drinking also can be deadly. In 2003, 31 percent of drivers age 15 to 20 who died in traffic accidents had been drinking alcohol.1

Alcohol can hurt you--even if you're not the one drinking. If you're around people who are drinking, you have an increased risk of being seriously injured, involved in car crashes, or affected by violence. At the very least, you may have to deal with people who are sick, out of control, or unable to take care of themselves.


Tips for Teens

Tips for Teens: The Truth About Alcohol
Slang--Booze, Sauce, Brews, Brewskis, Hooch, Hard Stuff, Juice

Get the Facts…

Alcohol affects your brain. Drinking alcohol leads to a loss of coordination, poor judgment, slowed reflexes, distorted vision, memory lapses, and even blackouts.

Alcohol affects your body. Alcohol can damage every organ in your body. It is absorbed directly into your bloodstream and can increase your risk for a variety of life-threatening diseases, including cancer.

Alcohol affects your self-control. Alcohol depresses your central nervous system, lowers your inhibitions, and impairs your judgment. Drinking can lead to risky behaviors, such as driving when you shouldn’t, or having unprotected sex.

Alcohol can kill you. Drinking large amounts of alcohol at one time or very rapidly can cause alcohol poisoning, which can lead to coma or even death. Driving and drinking also can be deadly. In 2003, 31 percent of drivers age 15 to 20 who died in traffic accidents had been drinking alcohol.1

Alcohol can hurt you--even if you're not the one drinking. If you're around people who are drinking, you have an increased risk of being seriously injured, involved in car crashes, or affected by violence. At the very least, you may have to deal with people who are sick, out of control, or unable to take care of themselves.

Before You Risk It…

Know the law. It is illegal to buy or possess alcohol if you are under age 21.

Get the facts. One drink can make you fail a breath test. In some States, people under age 21 can lose their driver's license, be subject to a heavy fine, or have their car permanently taken away.

Stay informed. "Binge" drinking means having five or more drinks on one occasion. Studies show that more than 35 percent of adults with an alcohol problem developed symptoms--such as binge drinking--by age 19.2

Know the risks. Alcohol is a drug. Mixing it with any other drug can be extremely dangerous. Alcohol and acetaminophen--a common ingredient in OTC pain and fever reducers--can damage your liver. Alcohol mixed with other drugs can cause nausea, vomiting, fainting, heart problems, and difficulty breathing.3 Mixing alcohol and drugs also can lead to coma and death.

Keep your edge. Alcohol is a depressant, or downer, because it reduces brain activity. If you are depressed before you start drinking, alcohol can make you feel worse.

Look around you. Most teens aren't drinking alcohol. Research shows that 71 percent of people 12-20 haven't had a drink in the past month.4

Know the Signs…

How can you tell if a friend has a drinking problem? Sometimes it's tough to tell. But there are signs you can look for. If your friend has one or more of the following warning signs, he or she may have a problem with alcohol:

* Getting drunk on a regular basis
* Lying about how much alcohol he or she is using
* Believing that alcohol is necessary to have fun
* Having frequent hangovers
* Feeling run-down, depressed, or even suicidal
* Having "blackouts"--forgetting what he or she did while drinking

What can you do to help someone who has a drinking problem? Be a real friend. You might even save a life. Encourage your friend to stop or seek professional help.

[Chy]

The adolescent brain
The brain goes through dynamic change during adolescence, and alcohol can seriously damage long- and short-term growth processes. Frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections continue until age 16, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until age 20. Damage from alcohol at this time can be long-term and irreversible. In addition, short-term or moderate drinking impairs learning and memory far more in youth than adults. Adolescents need only drink half as much to suffer the same negative effects.

Drinkers vs. non-drinkers: research findings

* Adolescent drinkers scored worse than non-users on vocabulary, general information, memory, memory retrieval and at least three other tests
* Verbal and nonverbal information recall was most heavily affected, with a 10 percent performance decrease in alcohol users
* Significant neuropsychological deficits exist in early to middle adolescents (ages 15 and 16) with histories of extensive alcohol use
* Adolescent drinkers perform worse in school, are more likely to fall behind and have an increased risk of social problems, depression, suicidal thoughts and violence
* Alcohol affects the sleep cycle, resulting in impaired learning and memory as well as disrupted release of hormones necessary for growth and maturation
* Alcohol use increases risk of stroke among young drinkers

Adverse effects of alcohol on the brain: research findings
Youth who drink can have a significant reduction in learning and memory, and teen alcohol users are most susceptible to damaging two key brain areas that are undergoing dramatic changes in adolescence:

* The hippocampus handles many types of memory and learning and suffers from the worst alcohol-related brain damage in teens. Those who had been drinking more and for longer had significantly smaller hippocampi (10 percent).
* The prefrontal area (behind the forehead) undergoes the most change during adolescence. Researchers found that adolescent drinking could cause severe changes in this area and others, which play an important role in forming adult personality and behavior and is often called the CEO of the brain.

Lasting implications
Compared to students who drink moderately or not at all, frequent drinkers may never be able to catch up in adulthood, since alcohol inhibits systems crucial for storing new information as long-term memories and makes it difficult to immediately remember what was just learned.

Additionally, those who binge once a week or increase their drinking from age 18 to 24 may have problems attaining the goals of young adulthood—marriage, educational attainment, employment, and financial independence. And rather than "outgrowing" alcohol use, young abusers are significantly more likely to have drinking problems as adults.

What can be done to stop this epidemic?
The AMA advocates numerous ways to combat this growing epidemic, including:

* Reducing access to alcohol for children and youth
* Reducing sales and provision of alcohol to children and youth
* Increasing enforcement of underage drinking laws
* Providing more education about the harmful effects of alcohol abuse
* Reducing the demand for alcohol and the normalization of alcohol use by children and youth

A major source of the normalization of alcohol use by children and youth is alcohol advertising. Television networks and cable stations have profited tremendously from the alcohol industry's aggressive marketing to underage drinkers. These ads are proven to heavily influence the normalization and glamorization of drinking in the minds of children, and television has continued to endanger the health of these young viewers in spite of such findings.

With these new findings of the adverse effects of alcohol on the brain of children and adolescents, the AMA calls on cable TV and the TV networks to pledge not to run alcohol ads targeted at underage youth. This means no alcohol ads before 10 p.m., none on shows with 15 percent or more underage viewers and no commercials with cartoons, mascots or other youth-focused images.

AMA - Brain Damage Risks

[Chy]

Adolescence is such a critical phase in brain development that the actions of alcohol and other drugs on the brain can be assumed to have a particularly profound impact during this developmental period. Indeed, research has shown that compared with the adult brain, the adolescent brain is particularly sensitive to some effects of alcohol, yet more resistant to other effects. Much of this research, especially investigations of specific effects of acute alcohol administration, has been conducted in animals because studies involving administration of alcohol to human adolescents are subject to very stringent regulations, and certain studies of alcohol's effects on the adolescent brain can be conducted only using animal models. This article reviews some of the differences in alcohol's effects on the adolescent and adult brain that were identified using these animal models. The accompanying article by Tapert and colleagues summarizes information that has been obtained in studies of human adolescents and young adults.

Major Changes in Brain Structure and
Function during Adolescence

Adolescence in humans is broadly defined as the second decade of life, although some researchers consider ages up to 25 years as "late adolescence." The corresponding period in laboratory animals that are frequently used as study subjects is just as loosely defined. In rats it typically spans postnatal days 30-50. In both humans and animal models, adolescence is a period when the brain undergoes extensive remodeling. New connections among neurons are being formed; at the same time, a substantial number of existing connections are lost. It is hypothesized that this plasticity allows the individual's brain to be sculpted based on his or her personal experiences and interactions with the outside world.

One brain region where particularly extensive remodeling occurs is the frontal region of the outer layer of the brain - the prefrontal cortex - which is thought to be involved in working memory, voluntary motor behavior, impulse control, rule learning, spatial learning, planning, and decisionmaking. These changes are especially extensive in humans. Although the number of neurons and neuronal connections in the prefrontal cortex appear to decline during adolescence, the relative importance of the frontal lobes increases.

Developmental changes in the behavioral relevance of certain brain areas are accompanied by increases or decreases in the activities of chemicals called neurotransmitters, which help transmit nerve signals from one neuron to another. This signaling takes place when neurotransmitters released by one neuron bind to protein molecules called receptors on the surface of the receiving neuron. The interaction between the neurotransmitter and its receptor initiates chemical and electrical changes in the signal-receiving neuron that influence the generation of a new nerve signal in that cell. In this way, nerve cells and circuits communicate and drive behavior. Excitatory neurotransmitters promote the generation of new nerve signals, whereas inhibitory neurotransmitters make it more difficult to generate a nerve signal in a signal-receiving neuron. Numerous neurotransmitters and their receptors have been identified that act on specific cells or groups of cells and have specific effects on those cells.

Two important neurotransmitter systems that undergo substantial changes during adolescence and are affected by alcohol consumption are dopamine and gamma-aminobutyric acid. Dopamine can have both excitatory and inhibitory effects, depending on the cells it acts on. Dopamine-releasing and dopamine-receiving cells are found in numerous brain areas. One prominent region, which lies deep within the brain, is called the striatum. It consists of several components that are involved in behaviors such as learning to automatically execute complex movements triggered by a voluntary command. Another dopamine-using area is the nucleus accumbens, which plays a role in learning and performing certain behaviors in response to incentive stimuli. Activity in the nucleus accumbens in part accounts for the fact that people perceive the effects of drinking alcohol or taking other drugs as pleasurable.

[Hopefloats]

Thank you Chy, this is something I will share with my grandson. He needs to know this information as for some reason at 11 he does not think alcohol is a drug:( Grammy Hope will be doing a bit of education on this with my boy