The NY Times has an interesting article on the damage done to adolescent brains by alcohol consumption. The major problems are in frontal lobe development and hippocampus function. The good news is that plasticity helps ameliorate the damage later.
Although human brains are far more developed and elaborate in their frontal regions, some functions are analogous across species, Dr. Crews said, including planning and impulse control. During human adolescence, these portions of the brain are heavily remolded and rewired, as teenagers learn — often excruciatingly slowly — how to exercise adult decision-making skills, like the ability to focus, to discriminate, to predict and to ponder questions of right and wrong.
“Alcohol creates disruption in parts of the brain essential for self-control, motivation and goal setting,” Dr. Crews said, and can compound pre-existing genetic and psychological vulnerabilities. “Early drinking is affecting a sensitive brain in a way that promotes the progression to addiction.
”Let’s say you’ve been arrested for driving while drunk and spent seven days in jail,“ Dr. Crews said. ”You’d think, ‘No way am I going to speed and drive drunk again,’ because you have the ability to weigh the consequences and the importance of a behavior. This is exactly what addicts don’t do.“
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