Study of University Students Shows Binge Drinking Impairs Attention and Visual Memory
A number of university students have found binge drinking to be a fun pastime, despite reports as to the adverse affects on their health. Now, a new study shows the impact this activity can have on attention and visual working memory.
With a summary posted on Science Daily, this study found binge drinkers expend more effort to complete a given task. In addition, these individuals also have a deficiency in differentiating between relevant and irrelevant information.
“Currently, about 40 percent of university students in the U.S. are considered binge drinkers, while 12.2 percent of Spanish university students may be,” explained Alberto Crego, in Science Daily. Crego is a doctoral student at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain and corresponding author for the study.
“One of the reasons for this is because in Anglo-Saxon countries there is a longer tradition of drinking linked to weekend diversions and characterized by sporadic consumption of large quantities of alcohol in short periods. While in Mediterranean countries such as Spain, alcohol consumption is traditionally more regular and linked to gastronomy.”
Crego noted the most worrying aspect of the high prevalence of binge drinking in young people is the effect such drinking patterns can have on the structure and function of a still developing brain. Such consequences could persist in the long term.
This study identified that young healthy university students who engage in binge drinking showed anomalies during the execution of a task involving visual working memory, even though they correctly executed the task. These students required greater attention processes during the task in order to do it correctly.
These students also demonstrated difficulties differentiating between relevant and irrelevant stimuli. Crego noted the student displayed less efficiency in distributing working memory resources between the different information presenting in a working memory task. The results suggest impaired brain function may occur at an early age in binge drinkers.
