The effect of alcohol use on human adolescent brain structures and systems

Abstract

This article reviews the neurocognitive and neuroimaging literature regarding the effect of alcohol use on human adolescent brain structure and function. Adolescents who engage in heavy alcohol use, even at subdiagnostic levels, show differences in brain structure, function, and behavior when compared with non-drinking controls. Preliminary longitudinal studies have helped disentangle premorbid factors from consequences associated with drinking. Neural abnormalities and cognitive disadvantages both appear to predate drinking, particularly in youth who have a family history of alcoholism, and are directly related to the neurotoxic effect of alcohol use. Binge drinking and withdrawal and hangover symptoms have been associated with the greatest neural abnormalities during adolescence, particularly in frontal, parietal, and temporal regions.

Keywords: adolescence; alcohol; development; imaging; neurocognition.

Fig. 28.1

Adolescents aged 12–16 years old were scanned before they ever used any alcohol or drugs and then were rescanned approximately 3 years later on the same scanner. Those who transitioned into heavy use (n = 20) were matched to continuous non-drinkers (n = 20) over the follow-up on several alcohol risk and developmental factors. Adolescents who transitioned into heavy drinking over the follow-up showed less blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response during a visual working-memory task at baseline in frontal and parietal regions than matched controls; this local BOLD response increased after the initiation of heavy alcohol use. By contrast, continuous non-drinkers showed decreasing activation in these regions, as would be expected with maturation.