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A recent study led by a University of California, San Diego neuroscientist suggests that teen drinking may lead to irreversible brain damage.

Susan Tapert and colleagues compared the brain scans of teens who drink heavily with the scans of teens who don't. They found that teens who drink heavily sustain damage to brain nerve tissue, which negatively affects attention span in boys and the ability to comprehend and interpret visual information in girls.

Tapert commented on the findings: "First of all, the adolescent brain is still undergoing several maturational processes that render it more vulnerable to some of the effects of substances.

"For girls who had been engaging in heavy drinking during adolescence, it looks like they're performing more poorly on tests of spatial functioning, which links to mathematics, engineering kinds of functions.

"For boys who engaged in binge drinking during adolescence, we see poor performance on tests of attention -- so being able to focus on something that might be somewhat boring, for a sustained period of time."

For the study, the researchers looked at 12- to 14-year-olds before they used drugs or alcohol. Over time, some of the teens began drinking, a few rather heavily. Tapert's team compared those who began drinking with those who did not, and found that the binge drinkers performed significantly worse on cognitive tests.

Tapert explains that the result actually surprised her: "These results were actually surprising to me because the binge drinking kids hadn't, in fact, engaged in a great deal of binge drinking. They were drinking on average once or twice a month, but when they did drink, it was to a relatively high quantity of at least four or five drinks an occasion."

(Source: www.wbur.org)

Labels: teen drinking, binge drinking, brain damage

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According to the Edmonton (Canada) medical examiner's office, the effects of ecstasy are highly unpredictable. The same dosage may cause euphoria in one individual and brain damage and/or death in another. Although ecstasy-related deaths are rare, experts have not been able to correlate the effects of the drug with dosage. A single casual usage can cause significant brain damage. In addition, young women seem to be more susceptible to ecstasy overdose, but experts aren't sure why.

An overdose of ecstasy can cause death in at least three different ways: it can increase blood pressure to the point that a blood vessel ruptures, usually in the brain; it can cause hyperthermia (an increase in body temperature) to the point of death; and it can cause the brain to swell resulting in brain damage.

In addition to significant variability in how ecstasy affects different people, many ecstasy pills are homemade. These pills vary widely in their potency and contain an inconsistent variety of substances. Martin Davies, a pharmacologist at the University of Alberta, comments: "Ecstasy tablets can have all sorts of other drugs in them. ... That's part of the reason they're so dangerous. Some ecstasy tablets can contain no ecstasy whatsoever."

(Sources: www.edmontonjournal.com)

Labels: ecstasy, brain damage

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Alcoholism can cause loss of memory and executive function, even though alcoholics may think their brain functions are normal, according to a new study from France.

• Dr. Anne-Pascale LeBerre, of the University of Caen/Basse-Normandie asked 28 patients in alcohol rehabilitation to estimate how well they would do on tests of remembering episodes and tests of executive brain function.
• The patients had not had a drink in two weeks and were not on any medications.
• All of them predicted they would do well on the tests, yet all of them performed below average.

"If patients are unaware of memory deficits, and especially if they overestimate their memory ability, they will benefit only partially from clinical treatment, and they will labor under the illusion that they have sufficiently consolidated this important clinical information for everyday life, where as the reality is actually very different," said Dr. LeBerre.

This study appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Labels: alcoholism, brain damage

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 0 Comments

More evidence has emerged linking alcohol abuse and brain damage. People who repeatedly drive and drink have "brain problems" and score below average on tests that measure the ability to make good decisions, according to a new study from Turkey.

• Professors David Nutt and Muzaffer Kasar administered tests to 34 men who had two convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol and who were in alcohol rehabilitation.
• They gave the same tests to 31 non-offenders who were matched to the other group by age, education, and alcohol use.
• The ones with the DUI convictions scored poorly on tests that measure real life decision-making.
• However, both groups scored about the same on tests of neuropsychological functioning, temperament, and character.

"These findings suggest that second time DUI offenders do not suffer from motor impulsiveness -- that is, a lack of impulse control in 'here and now' situations," said Dr. Nutt. "They suffer from cognitive impulsiveness which depends on associating negative experiences with positive negative consequences."

The study appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
 

Labels: brain damage, driving

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