GALICIA, Spain, Aug 13, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Students desiring to excel at
school or work may wish to forego binge drinking, research by Spanish scientists
suggests.
The study, published online ahead of print in the November issue of Alcoholism:
Clinical & Experimental Research, finds binge drinkers expend more attentional
effort to completing a given task, and have problems differentiating between
relevant and irrelevant information.
The study looked at 95 first-year male and female university students. Of these,
42 were binge drinkers -- defined as males who drink five or more standard
alcohol drinks or females who drink four or more within a two-hour period.
The researchers find binge drinkers showed anomalies during the execution of a
task involving visual working memory not shown by the 53 non-binge drinkers.
"One of the most relevant and worrying aspects of the high prevalence of intense
consumption of alcohol in young people is the effect this drinking pattern
probably has on the structure and function of the still developing brain, and
that these consequences may persist in the long-term," study corresponding
author Alberto Crego, a doctoral student at the University of Santiago de
Compostela in Galicia, Spain, says in a statement.
"Some neuromaturation processes continue until approximately 25 years of age;
this means that late developing regions are probably even more vulnerable
targets."
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