Binge Drinking May Affect College Students’ Memory
Binge drinking is extremely popular among college students. Aside from the more immediate risks like accidents, injuries, and even death, binge drinking may also affect memory. A new Spanish study has linked binge drinking in college students to a lowered ability to remember lists of words. The researchers noted that their study doesn’t prove that alcohol was at fault for the memory loss, and that the drinkers performed well on a separate memory test.
Aaron White, program director for Underage and College Drinking Prevention Research at the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism., said that although it isn’t clear whether this apparent difference in the ability to remember words could have an impact on the learning abilities of college students who binge drink, if binge drinking does compromise the ability to perform memory tasks even a day after drinking, the findings could be important for students who drink on the weekends and go back to studying during the week.
Study author Maria Parada, a postdoctoral researcher at Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in Spain, said that until recently, it was believed that young people were more resistant to the effects of alcohol than adults; however, animal studies during the 90s showed differently, and we know now that the brain is still developing during adolescence and alcohol may interfere with this development. She added that little is known about what happens in the nervous system during adolescence, and how these changes may be affected by alcohol.
The researchers gave memory tests to 62 college students in Spain who were binge drinkers and 60 who did not binge drink. All participants were between the ages of 18 and 20. The participants took two tests, one in which they were asked to remember words and another in which they were asked to remember details from images.
They found that the binge drinkers scored lower on some parts of the word memory test, but not on the detail memory test. This shows only that drinking and memory loss may be connected, and it isn’t clear whether these effects will last over time.
Parada said that more research needs to be done to find out if alcohol is at fault; if it is, it could have something to do with affecting regions of the brain that take the longest to develop or those that are most vulnerable to the negative effects of alcohol.
Source: HealthDay News, Randy Dotinga, Binge Drinking Tied to Memory Loss in College Students: Study, May 16, 2011
