Youthful binge drinking changes the brain - for the worse - into adulthood

Latimes.com The adult brain that was awash in alcohol during its formative years looks different and acts differently than an adult brain that skipped the youthful binge drinking, says a new study conducted on rats. All grown up, the brain exposed to periodic alcoholic benders during adolescence and young adulthood shows persistent abnormalities in the structure and function of the hippocampus, the region most closely associated with learning and memory. The specific changes seen in adult rats who were regularly plied with alcohol during the brain's development generally result in memory problems and neuropsychiatric impairments such as attention and judgment problems and ability to learn new skills.  The study was published Monday in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research... According to a 2005 study by the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, about 90% of the alcohol consumed by youth under the age of 21 in the United States is in the form of binge drinks. The new research suggests that the still-developing brain of an adolescent or young adult is uniquely sensitive to levels of alcohol that are consistent with binge drinking...