To drink or think?

In today's world drinking has become a normal activity in America. From adults, young adults, adolescents, and even young adolescents drinking is seen as a way to either kick back and relax or just party it up with friends. What most people fail to see is the cognitive damage that drinking causes the brain. Alcohol affects a person’s motor skills such as walking and talking and even doing simple everyday tasks. Most people do not see the inward effect that alcohol causes to the brains which makes them less considered that they are damaging their bodies. Most will say phrases like, “At least I am not doing drugs”, or “Alcohol is safer than other drugs”. Both these phrases that people use are both wrong and misleading. First off people forget that alcohol is in fact a drug and second, some may say alcohol is safer than other drugs, but one of the main reasons for car accidents these days are usually alcohol related. The effects that alcohol has on your brain is actually very serious can lead to long term problems.  Some chronic alcohol effects have to do with task performance and striatal responsiveness. Although every person will test differently due to the way their body reacts to alcohol, studies show that after heavy drinking there is a reduction in dynamic responsiveness of the striatal neurocircuitry. (Bjork, Gilman, 2014, pg.7) Because of the way peoples bodies react to alcohol differently these causes a limitation in the study, but is still the case for most people. As stated earlier one of the acute effects of alcohol is the effects alcohol has on brain activation during decision making. To test this out a study was done with social drinkers, one group was given intravenous alcohol or a placebo. Both groups were giving a chance to either take a risk taking task or a safe option such as win or lose all the money and the group who had the alcohol almost always went for the risky choice compared to the safe choice. This clearly indicated that alcohol effects decision making. A limitation that comes with a study like this is that it is hard to maintain a true placebo due to different personality traits in people.  Although, the world is surrounded by people who involve themselves in alcohol it still does not make sense to damage one’s brain.

Bjork, J. M.,&  Gilman, J.M. ( 2014). The effects of acute alcohol administration on the human brain:

Insights from neuroimaging. Neuropharmacology, 84, p.101-110. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2013.07.039.

Abstract