Adolescence is a prime time in an individual's life. Not only are these young adults developing psychologically, emotionally, and physically, but they are also undergoing a neurological change that can be drastically influenced by environmental factors such as alcohol. Social factors like peer pressure can convince these young individuals to drink, increasing their risk-taking behavior to continue this habit.
Excessive alcohol consumption has always been a negative habit that deteriorates an individual’s cognitive and emotional processes, often intensifying connotative behaviors such as depression. For adolescents, this habit has even more negative effects that are detrimental to their overall development as their biological growth has yet peaked. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, early adolescent alcohol use can “alter critical ongoing processes of brain development that occur at that time, increasing the likelihood of problems with alcohol later in life” (“Alcohol’s Effects on Adolescents”). Further research shows this truth with elevated accounts of alcoholism correlating to earlier alcohol consumption in the individual’s adolescent years. Why does this increased likelihood exist?
According to “Consequences of Adolescent Ethanol Consumption on Risk Preference and Orbitofrontal Cortex of Encoding a Reward”, McMurray, Amodeo, and Roitman explored the neurobiological connections to alcohol consumption in adolescent rats. With three groups for comparison (no alcohol consumption, moderate alcohol consumption, and high alcohol consumption), researchers found that a “subpopulation of neurons showed blunted firing rates
following rewards in alcohol-consuming rats, suggesting a mechanism through which adolescent alcohol exposure may have lasting effects on reward processing in the context of decision making” (McMurray, Amodeo, & Roitman, 2016). This showed the strongest modulation in the alcohol-consuming, adolescent rat population after receiving a reward. This finding lead to an important conclusion: “regardless of potential variability in innate alcohol preferences, voluntary consumption of alcohol during adolescence biases choice patterns longitudinally through alterations in cortical function” (McMurray, Amodeo, & Roitman, 2016). Ultimately, this means that alcohol consumption in adolescents increases the return to the drug in the future, which qualifies what the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has witnessed in simple prevalence statistics. Adolescents’ risk-taking behavior increases with this drug, enticing them to return to this action more frequently since it is also seen as a risk-taking behavior.
In a related article, “Alcohol can rewire the teenage brain”, a Floridian pediatrician, Lorena Siqueira details the relationship between teenagers and alcohol consumption. Sisquieria notes that when teenagers drink, “their bodies are not ready to handle that kind of alcohol” (Haelle, 2016). Since teenage bodies are not biologically ready to process alcohol, binge-drinking habits come easier and in smaller doses compared to fully-developed adult bodies. As previously noted, teenagers early use of alcohol can lead to later use of alcohol. Siquiera concurs with this statement: “the younger they start, the more likely they are to continue to drink and to drink larger amounts… Teens who binge drink are more likely to become alcoholics” (Haelle, 2016).
In a similar rat study, Risher and colleagues explored how the hippocampal region was affected after adolescent alcohol consumption. Their results showed that “nerve cells in that part of the brain communicated abnormally” (Haelle, 2016). This means that this region of learning and memory was forever changed for adolescent alcohol-consuming rats. They noted that this hippocampal region’s branches should appear “like short mushrooms”, but “instead, they looked long and thin” (Haelle, 2016). Drastic neurobiological changes like these prove the detrimental effects that early adolescent alcohol consumption can cause.
Research consistently shows the negative effects of early age drinking. When pressured adolescents begin binge-drinking, they increase the likelihood to continue with this harmful habit due to their increased risk-taking behavior. This vicious risk-taking cycle only spurs for more alcohol consumption, which is why early alcohol consumption usually leads to adult alcohol abuse. Neurobiological effects such as a weakened learning and memory system (i.e. hippocampal effects) show the developmental drawback from adolescent alcohol consumption. With this information, adolescent still drink alcohol. How can society discourage this behavior? Only further research can show the effective implemented systems that decrease the rate of adolescent alcohol consumption.
Cited Works:
- Alcohol’s Effects on Adolescents. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh26-4/287-291.htm
- Haelle, T. (2016, July 03). Alcohol can rewire the teenage brain. Retrieved from https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/alcohol-can-rewire-teenage-brain
- Mcmurray, M. S., Amodeo, L. R., & Roitman, J. D. (2015). Consequences of Adolescent Ethanol Consumption on Risk Preference and Orbitofrontal Cortex Encoding of Reward. Neuropsychopharmacology, 41(5), 1366-1375. doi:10.1038/npp.2015.288
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