The Neuroscience of Binge Drinking

Adolescent brains are more vulnerable to alcohol addiction due to their stage in development. What if there were a way to identify the switches that make them more vulnerable and switch them off? Neil Harrison of Columbia University and colleagues looked into this very question. Researchers look into adolescent mice brains and found alcohol consumption leads to deficiencies in working memory. Which may explain why young binge drinkers tend to have bad memory problems, but there may be ways to reverse or circumvent the effects. Drinking alters neuron excitability by ion channel interference within neurons. Perhaps targeting those ion channels could improve working memory problems and ultimately help those with alcohol problems across the board. -->Read more