Adolescent Binge Drinking Can Damage Spatial Working Memory

[steven johnson]

Having trouble finding your keys or navigating after an especially heavy night of drinking? Oops.

Binge or "heavy episodic" drinking is prevalent during adolescence, raising concerns about alcohol's effects on crucial neuromaturational processes during this developmental period. Heavy alcohol use has been associated with decrements in cognitive functioning in both adult and adolescent populations, particularly on tasks of spatial working memory (SWM). This study examined gender-specific influences of binge drinking on SWM, finding that female teens may be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of heavy alcohol use.

Heavy alcoSpatial working memory is the ability to perceive the space around you, she added, and then remember and work with this information. "We chose to examine spatial working memory because previous studies have shown it is impaired in adults and adolescents who heavily drink alcohol," she said. "Deficits on tasks of spatial working memory could relate to difficulties with driving, figural reasoning (like geometry class), sports (remembering and enacting complex plays), using a map, or remembering how to get to places."

Alcohol use could interrupt normal brain cell growth during adolescence, particularly in these frontal brain regions, which could interfere with teens' ability to perform in school and sports, and could have long-lasting effects, even months after the teen uses."

(fMRI): "Our study found that female teenage heavy drinkers had less brain activation in several brain regions than female non-drinking teens when doing the same spatial task," said Tapert. "These differences in brain activity were linked to worse performance on other measures of attention and working memory ability. Male binge drinkers showed some but less abnormality as compared to male non-drinkers. This suggests that female teens may be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of heavy alcohol use

Adolescent Binge Drinking Can Damage Spatial Working Memory

[Turbineguy]

1. Now if binge drinkers

could actually spell that.....

[applegrove]

2. I didn't start to binge drink until I was 32. I had a few episodes as a teen

but used to be the designated driver so I didn't drink much.

I didn't socialize much in my early twenties so I didn't drink that much.

What wrecked my memory time and against was being attacked for who I am. Being bullied will wreck your memory every time.

[bemildred]

3. Sounds sort of like being drunk.

You get drunk enough, it will mess up your Spatial Working Memory every time.