Drinking alcohol during adolescence modifies the brain
We live in a society where alcohol consumption among young people has become popular and in which it is part of a large number of traditions and events. Used as an element to cause both mental and physical disinhibition and to socialize, with the passage of time the age of onset of alcohol consumption has been decreasing.
Nowadays, the average age at which people start drinking these substances is around thirteen . Although the immediate effects of intoxication are known, what is not so well known is that the habitual consumption of alcohol, even without falling into dependency, causes changes in the brain structure of adolescents.
These changes are especially noticeable and have greater effect when consumption has occurred in individuals in the process of development. In other words, we can consider that alcohol consumption in adolescence causes brain changes .
Alcohol and adolescence: bad combination
Alcohol is one of the most popular legal drugs in the world, frequently used in all kinds of contexts by the vast majority of the population. It is a substance that falls into the category of psycholeptics or depressants because its main effect is to cause a decrease in the activity of the nervous system.
Although it seems paradoxical, in small doses said depressant effect produces an increase in the feeling of euphoria and well-being , since it first inhibits subcortical territories and some of the inhibitory processes that we normally use to regulate our behavior. That is why it facilitates socialization and so the vast majority of people consumes alcohol recreationally .
At high doses of alcohol, however, more properly depressive effects appear, with an alteration of the level of consciousness, mental and physical slowness and loss of part of reasoning and executive functions in general.
Given the reinforcing effects that appear with the consumption of small amounts of alcohol, it is common for adolescents, who they find themselves searching for their identity through experimentation and the connection with people far from the figures of authority and family, decide to resort to drinking as a means of socialization and disinhibition of their impulses.
However, in addition to the risk of severe poisonings (in which ethyl coma may appear and even death due to cardiorespiratory arrest) and dependence that can cause alcohol at any age, it must be taken into account that the adolescent brain is still in a period of development , so that the consumption of substances with psychoactive properties can produce serious structural and functional alterations in your brain.
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Changes in brain structure
The latest research shows that alcohol consumption at early ages, in which the brain has not yet fully developed , produces relevant long-term changes in the structure and configuration of neurons.
Specifically, the clearest effects occur in parts of the brain linked to learning, memory and executive functions . In experiments carried out with rodents it has been shown that individuals who during the development stage have consumed relatively frequently in adulthood have much more difficulties in memory tasks, anticipation and planning. These effects occur especially due to the involvement of the hippocampus, the limbic system and the frontal lobe.
Effects on the hippocampus
The alcohol makes the hippocampus not develop as much like that of individuals who have not consumed. The cells of this brain localization appear as immature and undeveloped compared to adults who have not consumed alcohol frequently.
It has also been observed that long-term potentiation, one of the processes through which by strengthening synapses (the spaces through which neurons communicate with each other) reinforces learning and is especially active during childhood and adolescence , is especially active. While this may seem positive, this activation reaches such a level that it ends up collapsing and not producing more learning .
Based on the immaturity of the observed cells, it is speculated that the effect of alcohol, a substance of the depressant type, probably alters the maturation process. In this sense, it has also been proven that the formation of new neurons and connections between them slows down and even stops .
The involvement of this area induces severe difficulties in recognition and short-term memory, with long-term memory generally preserved.More than forgetting the information withheld, the most important problems would be at the level of the ability to "record" and store new information.
Impact of the frontal
In addition to the hippocampus, another of the areas with the greatest alterations to alcohol consumption in adolescence is the frontal lobe, the part of the brain most linked to impulse control, planning and general executive functions , also affecting some facets of personality.
The continued long-term consumption of alcohol generates alterations in this area, producing a high level of degeneration and neuronal death, especially in the prefrontal area. These alterations arise in people of any age who consume alcohol abusively for long periods, but nevertheless it has been proven that in developing brains like those of adolescents the level of neuronal death is much higher than in other stages .
This can cause that now teenagers have in the future impulse control problems, diminishing their inhibition capacity, which in the long run adopt a more aggressive and impulsive attitude. It is also frequent that individuals who frequent alcohol during early stages have a lower capacity for concentration and planning than expected. Lastly, in the long term decreases the ability to set goals and self-motivation , being also more likely the fall in depressive and anxiety states.
Effects on the brain reward system
It is demonstrated that during adolescence dopaminergic receptors are especially activated and have some hypersensitivity to this neurotransmitter, this being one of the reasons why adolescents in general tend to seek new experiences that stimulate them.
In this sense, another of the elements that the various studies have reflected is that it is observed a higher frequency of substance dependence among subjects who started drinking before the age of fourteen with respect to those who had their first experiences with alcohol from the twenties (a time when the brain is already fully developed or close to completing its development process).
This fact can be linked, together with the alteration of the mechanisms of inhibition characteristic of the affectation of the frontal, to an alteration in the ways that regulate the emotions and the sensation of reward. Both the action on GABA and the inhibition of glutamate NMDA receptors that produce alcohol induce an increase in dopaminergic activity in the striatum, which in being already hypersensitized due to the development process can lead to a facility to fix behaviors that the stimulate even more, such as the consumption of alcohol or other substances.
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Bibliographic references:
- Calvo, H.B. (2009). Alcohol and neuropsychology. Neuropsychology, Neuropsychiatry and Neurosciences, vol.9, Nº2: pp. 53-76.
- Risher, M.L .; Fleming, R.L .; Risherm W.C .; Miller, K.M .; Klein, R.C .; Wills, T .; Acheson, S.K .; Moore, S.D .; Wilson, W.A .; Eroglu, C. & Swartzwelder, H.S. (2015). Adolescent intermittent alcohol exposure: persistence of structural and functional hippocampal abnosrmalities into adulthood. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research; 39 (6): 989-97.
- Stephens, D.N. and Duka, T. (2008). Cognitive and emotional consequences of binge drinking: role of amygdala and prefrontal cortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, 363, 3169-3179.
