Posted on April 30, 2010

Teens who drink are making a bad choice. Drinking as an adolescent can result in negative consequences, such as legal problems, discipline from parents, and secondary consequences like alcohol-related automobile accidents.

A recent study highlights another area that is adversely affected by teen drinking. Physical damage caused to the brain while drinking may be a permanent result of bingeing on alcohol. Neuroscientist Susan Tapert of the University of California, San Diego recently led a team of researchers who explored the impact of drinking on the brains of teenagers.

The researchers compared brain scans between teenagers who engaged in binge drinking and those who did not drink. The research’s results indicated that the damage caused by binge drinking caused damage that affected the attention span of both boys and girls, causing problems in comprehension and in correctly interpreting visual cues.

Tapert explains, “First of all, the adolescent brain is still undergoing several maturational processes that render it more vulnerable to some of the effects of the substances.” The effects of alcohol on the brain are more severe because of the developmental processes taking place during the adolescent years.

The study, which was published in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, examined the brains of 12- to 14-year-olds whose brains were examined before they used any alcohol or drugs. Their brains were examined again after they began to drink. Some of the adolescents began to drink heavily, consuming four or more drinks two or three times per month.

The study found that the adolescents who participated in binge drinking performed at a lower level on thinking and memory tests than their non-drinking counterparts.

There was also a gender difference noted. Girls who participated in heavy drinking performed poorly on measures related to spatial functioning. Spatial functioning is linked closely with skills in mathematics.

Male adolescents who drank heavily performed poorly on measures of attention, showing that their ability to focus on a topic for a period of time might be compromised. The difference between the ability to focus between those who drank heavily and those who abstained was 10 percent, a significant difference.

Using brain imagine, Tapert examined the effects of binge drinking on the development of adolescent brain cells. Tapert focused attention on the nerve tissue of the brain, which is important for information passing between brain cells. The nerve tissue continues to develop during adolescence.

The results of Tapert’s study show a significant difference in the nerve tissue of the adolescents who participated in binge drinking when compared with non-drinking teens. Further research is needed to determine whether the damage may be reversed with therapy or medical intervention.