Binge Drinking Leads To Neurocognitive Deficits
Among College Students
May 30, 2007
* Alcoholics tend to have poorer neurocognitive functioning, including
decision-making capabilities.
* A new study has found that binge drinking, common among college students, is
associated with impaired decision making.
* The long-term neurocognitive effects of binge drinking during young adulthood
are unclear.
Researchers know that alcoholics tend to have poorer neurocognitive functioning,
including decision making, than non-alcoholics do. Less is known, however, about
alcohol's effects on decision-making capabilities among people who drink heavily
but are not considered alcoholics. A new study has found that binge drinking can
lead to poor decision making among college students, independent of impulsivity.
Results are published in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical &
Experimental Research.
"Alcoholics tend to exhibit poorer decision making such as preferring
short-term rewards, when these are coupled to long-term losses, instead of
choosing options which go together with long-term rewards," said Anna E.
Goudriaan, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam and
corresponding author for the study.
These choices tend to reflect more serious problems with executive functioning,
added Jenny Larkins, a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University
of Missouri. "Executive functioning involves skills such as planning for
the future, abstract reasoning, inhibiting or delaying responses, initiating
behavior, doing two things at once, and shifting between two activities in a
flexible way," she said.
"There are not a lot of studies that focus on the effects of heavy alcohol
use in people who are not addicted to alcohol," said Goudriaan.
"However, it seemed logical - that heavy alcohol would impact their
decision making, and we targeted young adults since they tend to drink the most,
and binge drink the most. We specifically targeted binge drinking, since some
animal studies suggest that it is deleterious for brain functioning."
Researchers examined 200 participants in an ongoing student-health study at the
University of Missouri-Columbia. They formed four subgroups (n=50, 50% male)
according to estimated binge-drinking trajectories during pre-college through to
second year: low-binge drinkers; stable moderate-binge drinkers; increasing
binge drinkers; and stable high-binge drinkers. Study authors also gathered
decision-making and impulsivity measures, Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) results, and
multiple indicators of heavy alcohol use.
Note: The Iowa Gambling Task is a computer card game in which four decks of
cards are presented on the screen. The participant must choose a card from one
of the four decks: each time they choose a card they will "win" money,
but every so often, choosing a card will cause them to "lose" money.
The goal of the game is to win as much money as possible. Decks A and B have a
total penalty of $1250 for every ten cards; C and D have a total penalty of $250
for every ten cards). Thus, A and B are "bad decks," and C and D are
"good decks."
"We found that stable high-binge drinking, starting at a pre-college age,
is related to diminished decision-making abilities, as exemplified by preferring
short-term rewards over long-term losses," said Goudriaan. "In other
words, this study shows that even in a group of "healthy" college
students who are not alcoholics, heavy alcohol use is related to diminished
decision making abilities or disadvantageous cognitive functions."
"It is also interesting to note that neither externalizing psychopathology
nor impulsivity as measured by questionnaires was associated with impaired IGT
performance," observed Larkins. "However, this finding - should be
tested in other college student samples as it could be due to the sampling
strategy employed."
"Based on these results and those from several other studies," said
Larkins, "adolescence appears to be a time of exquisite sensitivity to the
effects of alcohol on the brain. For these reasons, parents and clinicians must
be especially diligent in monitoring young people to prevent alcohol abuse, and
further attention to treatment programs designed for adolescents is
warranted."
###
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the
official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International
Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER
paper, "Decision Making and Binge Drinking: A Longitudinal Study,"
were: Emily R. Grekin and Kenneth J. Sher of the University of Missouri-Columbia
and the Midwest Alcoholism Research Center. The study was funded by the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Contact: Anna E. Goudriaan, Ph.D.
University of Amsterdam
Jenny Larkins, M.A.
University of
Missouri-Columbia
Alcoholism:
Clinical & Experimental Research
Medical News Today: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
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