Binge Drinking Damages Developing Brains

Previous studies have shown that binge drinking can impair a person’s memories of past events, and now a new study is showing that teens who binge drink continue to be forgetful and absent-minded days after consuming large quantities of alcohol. Researchers in the UK observed 60 students aged 17 to 19—a period during which the brain is still developing—testing the participants 3 to 4 days after a drinking session. The teens were asked to memorize a list of actions they would witness in a short video. After the video ended, the binge drinkers recalled up to one-third less items than their non-binging counterparts.