Will alcohol binges on New Year’s really destroy your ability to think flexibly? That’s what this peculiar op-ed in last week’s New York Times suggests.
Citing rat research, psychiatrist Paul Steinberg writes:
…just as the news is not so great for former cigarette smokers, there is equally bad news for recovering binge-drinkers who have achieved a sobriety that has lasted years. The more we have binged — and the younger we have started to binge — the more we experience significant, though often subtle, effects on the brain and cognition.
Much of the evidence for the impact of frequent binge-drinking comes from some simple but elegant studies done on lab rats by Fulton T. Crews and his former student Jennifer Obernier. Dr. Crews, the director of the University of North Carolina Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, and Dr. Obernier have shown that after a longstanding abstinence following heavy binge-drinking, adult rats can learn effectively — but they cannot relearn.
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