Binge-drinking teenagers ‘doing lasting harm to their memories’

Binge-drinking teenagers could be doing lasting harm to their memories, according to a new study.

Research suggests that drinking large amounts over a short period of time can damage a crucial part of adolescents' brains.

This area, the hippocampus, controls how the mind recalls events and forms mental images.

Such damage could leave youngsters in danger of becoming forgetful and absent-minded in the future, researchers warn.

The study, by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, looked at the effects of binge drinking on Rhesus monkeys.

They gave the animals large amounts of alcohol over a short period and then analysed their brains two months later.

The monkeys were producing fewer brain cells and had suffered more damage to the hippocampus than a control group not given alcohol.

The team behind the research believe that binge drinking has the same damaging effects on the brains of teenagers.

Dr Chitra Mandyam, who led the study, said: "Binge alcohol consumption in adolescents is increasing, and studies in animal models show that adolescence is a period of high vulnerability to brain insults."

In the monkeys alcohol "significantly decreased" the number of actively dividing cells, demonstrating the teenage hippocampus is particularly sensitive to its damaging effect, he added.

"This lasting effect, observed two months after alcohol discontinuation, may underlie the deficits in hippocampus-associated cognitive tasks that are observed in alcoholics."

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Source: Kate Devlin, The Irish Independent, 01/06/2010