Believe it or not, but the age at which kids are beginning to jump into the world of substance abuse, is as low as 12 years old. At this point in a child’s life, kids should be worrying about athletics, social expansion, and the wonders of middle school, rather than jumping into a dangerous world causing potential irreparable damage to the growing child. Susan Tapert, a neuroscientist from the University of California, San Diego, wanted to highlight the difference between brain scans of teenagers (age 12-14) that binge drink versus those that do not.
She first began studying the kids before they began their drinking behaviors, and they only began drinking a few months after the study began, which allowed the researchers to discriminate between the unaffected and affected brain. Binge drinking was classified as having four-five drinks per occasion, two-three times a month. Overall, binge drinkers performed worse when presented with thinking and memory tests and the researchers believe this is due to the newly-discovered nerve tissue damage in the brains of those that drank. The affected areas potentially decrease boys’ attention span, while decreasing these girls’ ability to comprehend and interpret visual information.
Jamie Donahey Roitman, also a neuroscientist, found a distinct correlation between alcohol consumption during adolescence and the disruption of neural development in the orbitofrontal region of the prefrontal cortex (OFC) during adulthood. The OFC, a critical area that develops the most during the adolescent ages, is important in the decision making process relating to the outcomes and rewards of each goal. She studied adult rats’ risk preference and OFC neural responses following voluntary alcohol consumption by adolescent rats. During the adolescent stage of the rats, they were given time-limited access to alcohol – which was in the form of gelatin to increase consumption rates. However, following the adolescent period, alcohol was no longer provided to the rats. During the adulthood phase, the rats were given risk-payoff tasks. Rats could either have one pellet of food every time, or a continuously increasing risky choice of three or none pellets. The researchers also recorded OFC activity during the risk behavior assessment.
The results indicated that the rats that did binge-drink (EtOH-high) during their adolescent time, had a higher preference for risky behavior as adults compared to control groups, as well as rats that drank low amounts of alcohol (EtOH-low). Then, looking at the corresponding OFC recordings, elevations in OFC neurons were significantly reduced in the EtOH-high groups when compared to control and EtOH-low groups as the rats received the reward. The main point highlights that higher levels of adolescent alcohol consumption was correlated with higher risk preference; however, this caused a reduced response of the associated OFC neurons. This could potentially lead researchers to say that adolescent alcohol abuse does have a negative impact on brain development, specifically the OFC which leads to rash decision-making in the future. It is imperative to continue to study the effects of substance abuse in children, and ultimately on their future.
Trudeau, Michelle. “Teen Drinking May Cause Irreversible Brain Damage.” NPR, NPR, 25 Jan. 2010, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122765890.
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