Alcohol
may have significant and irreversible effects on the brains of children,
adolescents, and young adults
Two decades
of research show that alcohol use has even greater negative effects
on brain development in children, adolescents, and young adults than
had been previously thought, according to a special report released
by the American Medical Association. The
report, entitled “Harmful Consequences of Alcohol Use of the Brains
of Children, Adolescents, and College Students,” which details anatomical
differences in the brains of young drinkers compared with non-alcohol
users of the same age, suggests that some of the structural changes
observed with magnetic resonance imaging may be irreversible.
The public health consequences in the U.S.
are clear: According to the report, the average age of a youth's
first drink is 12 years, and that nearly 20 percent of all 12- to
20-year-olds report being binge drinkers.
In the current study, American researchers
compared magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brains of 14- to
21-year-olds who abused alcohol with those of people of the same
age who did not use alcohol; the people who abused alcohol had about
a 10 percent smaller volume in the hippocampus, a significant, possibly
irreversible reduction.
The investigators found that alcohol users
scored worse on vocabulary, memory retrieval and other tests. In
addition, they were more likely to do poorly in school, suffer emotional
problems, and attempt suicide.
Even occasional heavy drinking (binge
drinking) was found to enhance the
possibility of injury in younger brains, proving that the choices
children and adolescents and their families and peer groups make
about alcohol may have very long-term consequences.
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