How Does Alcohol Affect the Brain?
In short, alcohol use during adolescence can interfere with structural and functional brain development and increase the risk for AUD not only during adolescence but also into adulthood. To help clinicians prevent alcohol-related harm in adolescents, NIAAA developed a clinician’s recovery games for groups guide that provides a quick and effective screening tool (see Resources below). The morning after a night of over-imbibing can cause some temporary effects on your brain.
How much can people drink safely?
Because a patient’s brain can be scanned on repeated occasions, clinicians and researchers are able to track a person’s improvement with abstinence and deterioration with continued abuse. Furthermore, brain changes can be correlated with neuropsychological and behavioral measures taken at the same time. Brain imaging can aid in identifying factors unique to the individual which affect that person’s susceptibility to the effects of heavy drinking and risk for developing dependence, as well as factors that contribute to treatment efficacy. The frontal lobes are connected with all other lobes of the brain (i.e., the parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes on both halves of the brain; see figure 1), and they receive and send fibers to numerous subcortical structures. Behavioral neuroscientists have determined that the anterior region of the frontal lobes (i.e., the prefrontal cortex) is important for engaging in ordinary cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal activities. Disruptions of the normal inhibitory functions of prefrontal networks often have the interesting effect of releasing previously inhibited behaviors.
As safe alcohol consumption varies from person to person, and different sources recommend various intakes, it is important to take an individualized approach. People should talk to a healthcare professional about their drinking history and personal risk factors to get tailored advice on safe alcohol consumption. Although alcohol can cause significant brain damage, an emerging body of research suggests that modest alcohol consumption may be beneficial for the brain. Korsakoff syndrome often appears after an episode of Wernicke’s encephalopathy, which is acute alcohol-related brain dysfunction.
Indeed, whole-brain volume in such rats continued to grow until approximately postnatal day 450 (Sullivan et al. 2006a), well past adulthood, which is typically considered as postnatal day 90 (Bell et al. 2013). Baseline studies (in the absence of alcohol i.e., EtOH exposure) also suggest that brains of alcohol-preferring rats are different relative to their wild-type counterparts, including reduced gray-matter volume in thalamus, ventral tegmental area, and insular and cingulate cortices (Gozzi et al. 2013). Turning from studies with humans to animals, the following section examines imaging studies in models of alcoholism and related disorders. Since the early 1980s, conventional structural MRI has allowed researchers to visualize the living human brain.
- The only methods capable of online detection of the electrical currents in neuronal activity are electromagnetic methods such electroencephalography (EEG), event-related brain potentials (ERP),4 and magnetoencephalography (MEG).
- “Some people think of the effects of alcohol as only something to be worried about if you’re living with alcohol use disorder, which was formerly called alcoholism,” Dr. Sengupta says.
- Research indicates that heavy alcohol use can also increase the risk of suicide.
How alcohol abuse affects your brain
Alcohol abuse makes it more difficult for the body to absorb this nutrient, but other issues, such as severe eating disorders, cancer, AIDS, and conditions that affect the body’s ability to absorb nutrients, may also cause Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. When the liver is not able to filter this poison quickly enough, a person can develop signs of alcohol poisoning or alcohol overdose. An overdose of alcohol affects the brain’s ability to sustain basic life functions. Alcohol use can exacerbate mental health conditions, like anxiety and depression, or lead to their onset. Alcohol use can damage the hippocampus, the part of your brain responsible for memory and learning.
Over time, people who consume large quantities of alcohol develop a tolerance to the drug. This dependency means that their brains crave the drug, causing them to experience withdrawal when they do not drink. Vitamin supplements and complete abstinence from alcohol may reverse symptoms of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome within the first 2 years after stopping drinking. Severe alcohol overdoses may cause permanent brain damage even if the person survives.
How is alcohol-related neurologic disease treated?
With neuroimaging techniques such as computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which allow brain structures to be viewed inside the skull, researchers can study brain anatomy in living patients. CT scans rely on x-ray beams passing through different types of tissue in the body at different angles. Pictures of the “inner structure” of the brain are based on computerized reconstruction of the paths and relative strength of the x-ray beams. CT scans of alcoholics have revealed diffuse atrophy of brain tissue, with the frontal lobes showing the earliest and most extensive shrinkage (Cala and Mastaglia 1981). Behavioral neuroscience studies the relationship between the brain and its functions—for example, how the brain controls executive functions and spatial cognition in healthy people, and how diseases like alcoholism can alter the normal course of events. This is accomplished by using specialized tests designed expressly to measure the functions of interest.
Alcohol is a powerful reinforcer in adolescents because the brain’s reward system is fully developed while the executive function system is not, and because there is a powerful social aspect to adolescent drinking. Specifically, prefrontal regions involved in executive functions and their connections to other brain regions are not fully developed in adolescents, which may make it harder for them to regulate the motivation to drink. Because the brain is adaptable and learns quickly during adolescence, and because alcohol is such a strong reinforcer for adolescents, alcohol use is more likely to be repeated, become a habit, and eventually evolve into a problematic drinking pattern that may lead to AUD. Heavy drinking can also lead to a host of health concerns, like brain damage, heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and even certain kinds of cancer. When it comes to the bottom line as it relates to alcohol consumption and brain health, the data are rather solid on some fronts, and a bit less so on others.
Ohio State Health & Discovery brings this expertise together to deliver today’s most important health news and the deeper story behind the most powerful topics that affect the health of people, animals, society and the world. You can support more innovations fueling advances across medicine, science, health and wellness by giving today. Ethanol also differentially affects the excitability of neurons that are not tonically active. For example, low-threshold spiking striatal interneurons show acute ethanol-induced hyperpolarization, but fast-spiking interneurons (FSIs) show a significant ethanol-induced membrane depolarization (Blomeley et al., 2011).