A study by Californian researchers found that teenagers particularly girls, who binge drink could be damaging the area of their brain that controls memory and spatial consciousness. The brain of teenagers women are especially susceptible to be damaged from alcohol as their brain develops earlier than men.
Binge drinking is defines as drinking more than three pints of beer and more than four glasses of wine in one session. The researchers from the University of California conscripted twenty-seven binge drinking men and thirteen women and asked them to complete neuropsychological and spatial working memory tests.
The similar tests were conducted on thirty men and twenty-five women those who did not have episodes of binge drinking and then the results of both studies were compared. By using MRI brain scans, they found that teenage binge drinking women had less activation in some regions of the brain, in comparison to non-drinking women while doing the same spatial task.
It could cause problems when driving, playing sports relating to complex moves, and remembering how to get somewhere. According lead author Prof Susan Tapert, these variations in the brain activity pessimistically affected other functions, such as concentration and working memory. Working memory is use and work with information that is in your mind like adding up numbers.
However, teenager men in the study were not affected to the same extent. Male binge drinkers’ showed some, but less abnormality in comparison to male non-drinkers. This suggests that female teens may be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of heavy alcohol use, added Prof Tapert.
The earlier study has shown that among adult alcoholics, females are more susceptible to the harmful effects of alcohol on the brain than males. The brains of adolescent boys and girls seem to be affected in a different way by alcohol, stated professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences Edith Sullivan sciences at Stanford University.
Females’ brains develop one to two years earlier than males, therefore alcohol use during different stages of development, in spite of the same age could account for the gender differences. Hormonal levels and alcohol-induced fluctuations in hormones could also account for the gender differences.
The similar quantity of alcohol could more pessimistically affect females since females likely to have slower metabolic rates, higher body fat ratios and lower body weight, added Prof Sullivan.