Teenagers indulging in massive drinking sessions (binge drinking) expose themselves to days of absent-mindedness and memory problems. Such the conclusion reached by Dr. Thomas Hefferman and associates at the University of Northumbria.

Their research consisted of comparative memory tests involving 26 binge drinkers and 34 non-binge drinkers between 17 and 19 years of age, the age where the brain has not quite completed its development. The term ‘binge drinker’ was applied to male subjects who would usually drink at least 8 units of alcohol in a session, or 6 for female subjects, once or twice a week.

The teenagers were tested three or four days later, to make sure that there was no alcohol in their bodies. In a memory test in which they were asked to commit a number of objects to memory, the binge-drinkers remembered one third fewer objects compared with the non-drinkers. Dr. Hefferman says that this is because of the weakening of their prefrontal cortex, that is to say, of that part of the brain that is the seat of day-to-day memory.

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