Health News Update

Binge drinking can lead to memory loss

The Canadian Press is reporting health research from a Spanish study has showing  that binge drinking can lead to memory loss.  This article, written by Lauren LaRose appeared on the Toronto Star health news website.  The study has also shown that binge drinking can also have negative effects on visual working memory processes and attention span.

“Binge drinking could lead to nursing more head troubles than a hangover – it could alter brain functioning and memory, a new study suggests.

Researchers conducted a study of first-year Spanish university students to look at the impact binge drinking had on their attention and visual working memory processes.

The study defined binge drinkers as males who drink five or more standard alcoholic drinks within a two-hour interval on one occasion. Women who drank four or more drinks under the same conditions were classified as binge drinkers.

A total of 95 students from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwest Spain ranging in age from 18 to 20 took part. Forty-two students – including 21 females – were classified as binge drinkers. The remaining 53 – including 26 females – were identified as “control” students – those who didn’t drink enough to raise concerns.

A technique known as event-related potential, or ERP, was used to examine the participants in the study, which is slated to be published in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

An ERP is the electrophysiological brain response to internal or external stimuli. Researchers paid close attention to monitor the negative and positive waveforms in the brain that are components of ERPs. The waveforms are associated with attention and working memory processes and have been shown to be particularly sensitive to alcohol.

Researchers found healthy young university students – meaning those with no alcohol use disorder, drug use, alcohol dependence or associated psychiatric disorders – who engaged in binge drinking required more attentional effort to complete a given task. That said, the task was still executed correctly.
“These electrophysiological differences found suggest the need on the part of binge drinkers for greater attentional processing during the task in order to carry it out correctly,” corresponding author Alberto Crego wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.

The ERPs were recorded during a visual “identical pairs” continuous performance task. Abstract figures were randomly presented in the centre of a computer monitor placed 100 centimetres in front of the subject’s eyes.

Students were instructed to press a button when two consecutive identical stimuli appeared and not to respond in the other cases. That meant they had to maintain each figure present in their working memory and had to respond if the next figure was the same.

Crego said the differences observed in the study may reflect impairment in both attention and working memory processes.
“Despite adequate performance, if alcohol-induced disruption increases, then performance-related problems may emerge.”

What’s more, researchers write that it has been suggested that the adolescent brain is more sensitive to the “neurotoxic effects” of alcohol and binge drinking than the adult brain, especially structures of the brain that mature later on in development. But Crego notes that further research is needed to clarify the effects of binge drinking on working memory. Longitudinal studies are also needed to understand the evolution of the binge drinking pattern “and of associated neurofunctional and behavioural alterations,” he wrote.”

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Normal aging causes memory loss

Scientists may have discovered why we tend to slow down mentally as we age. Harvard University used medical imaging techniques to compare the brains of 93 healthy people aged 18 to 93. The scans showed the brain gradually loses the material it needs for one major region to communicate effectively with another. It is also known that declining levels of hormones and diet affect the aging process.

The study, published in Neuron, suggests this slowly undermines sophisticated “higher” cognitive functions such as memory and learning.

This may help to explain why advanced age is often accompanied by a loss of mental agility, even in an otherwise healthy individual.

Lead researcher Jessica Andrews-Hanna said: “This research helps us to understand how and why our minds change as we get older, and why some individuals remain sharp into their 90s, while others’ mental abilities decline as they age.

“One of the reasons for loss of mental ability may be that these systems in the brain are no longer in sync with one another.”

Previous studies have focused on the effect of ageing on specific structures in the brain.

The latest work, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, was different because it examined the effect on communication between different regions.

White matter

The researchers tracked the nerve cell-packed white matter, which effectively serves as the brain’s wiring, allowing different areas to communicate and share information.

The scans showed white matter degraded over time. In particular, they revealed a reduction in connections between the front and back regions of the brain.

As a result, while the younger brains were in sync, this was not always the case for older brains.

Older people whose brains remained in sync were more likely to perform better in a battery of tests of mental capacity than peers whose scans showed more evidence of disruption.

However, the pattern of disruption varied between individuals – as did their performance on individual tests.

The researchers found the system governing our internal thoughts, which tends to kick in when we are not focusing on processing information from the outside world, was particularly vulnerable to disruption.

The researchers said the study promises a better physiological understanding of cognitive decline, and may help research into the impact of risk factors such as heart disease.

Professor Randy Buckner, who worked on the study, said: “Understanding why we lose cognitive function as we age may help us to prolong our mental abilities later in life.”

Vascular element

Professor Clive Ballard, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said more work was needed to confirm and clarify the findings.

He said: “Understanding how the brain changes as people age is an important part of the fight to protect against cognitive diseases such as dementia.

“People displaying the signs of Alzheimer’s disease were ruled out of the study, but those with subtle vascular changes in the brain may have been included.

“Further work is needed to establish if the pattern of change is related to age only, or to vascular changes in the brain.”

Rebecca Wood, of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said the research highlighted the complexity of the brain.

She said: “If we can better understand the normal effects of ageing on a brain then we can differentiate it from Alzheimer’s and improve diagnosis.”

News Source:  BBC NEWS