Effect of Alcohol use on the Adolescent Brain and Behavior
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Adolescence is a period of considerable physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioral changes. Adolescence is marked by increased reward sensitivity, sensation seeking, and impulsive conduct, as well as a loss of self-control in controlling emotions and behaviors. This contributes to the high prevalence of dangerous behavior, such as the beginning and progression of alcohol consumption. Researchers have been trying to figure out the direction of this association for the past decade. Human research is limited to natural observational studies since it would be immoral to randomly assign youth to different alcohol-using groups.. By assessing youth before they have ever used alcohol or other drugs and continuing to assess them over time as a portion of the participant population naturally transitions into substance use, prospective, longitudinal designs have been used to help delineate between pre-existing alterations and post-alcohol effects on brain development. This methodology allows researchers to compare the brain maturation of adolescents who have never used alcohol or drugs throughout adolescence to youth who have transitioned from adolescence to adulthood. In a recent analysis, potential pre-existing neurobiological markers of alcohol use in humans were summarized. While prior investigations have looked into the neurological effects of alcohol consumption, there are certain limitations. Previous reviews reviewed studies that looked at the influence of one adolescent drinking habit or one study type (i.e. neuropsychological studies, neuroimaging studies).