For teenagers, the effects of a drunken night out may linger long after the hangover wears off.
A recent study led by neuroscientist Susan Tapert of the University of California, San Diego compared the brain scans of teens who drink heavily with the scans of teens who don’t.
Tapert’s team found damaged nerve tissue in the brains of the teens who drank. The researchers believe this damage negatively affects attention span in boys, and girls’ ability to comprehend and interpret visual information.
“First of all, the adolescent brain is still undergoing several maturational processes that render it more vulnerable to some of the effects of substances,” Tapert says.
[blockquote]What remains unknown, says Tapert, is if the cognitive downward slide in teenage binge drinkers is reversible.[/blockquote]
The issue is more behavioral than neurological. The white matter is glial cells which can replicate unlike the neurons which cannot. Thus it seems to me that the condition is reversible if the individual stops drinking unless there is also damage to the neurons.
Well, maybe drinking can make you stupid, but it seems just as likely that these teenagers who drank were stupid in the first place.