NYT on the ‘grim neurology’ of teenage drinking

The New York Times has published an extensive article on the effect of drinking on the teenage brain.

Increasing research is now being conducted on the effect of teenage substance use on the brain, as it has recently been discovered that adolescents do not just have ‘young adult’ brains in all respects.

It now seems that the brain may be particularly sensitive during the teenage years, and significant substance abuse may have more of an impact during this time than later in adult life.

While much research has been conducted on cannabis use during adolesence, owing to its effect of increasing the risk of psychosis, attention is increasing being focused on alchohol.

Mounting research suggests that alcohol causes more damage to the developing brains of teenagers than was previously thought, injuring them significantly more than it does adult brains. The findings, though preliminary, have demolished the assumption that people can drink heavily for years before causing themselves significant neurological injury. And the research even suggests that early heavy drinking may undermine the precise neurological capacities needed to protect oneself from alcoholism.

Link to NYT article ‘The Grim Neurology of Teenage Drinking’.