Alcohol linked to loss of memory

Drinking continuously for a short time can affect your memory and your learning capabilities.

A new study done on mice says that consuming alcohol daily for even as less as eight weeks can impair your memory and other cognitive functions like learning. Researchers from St. Louis University School of Medicine said that not only the memory gets affected; the cognitive impairment can remain even after quitting drinking.

The researchers had tested their hypothesis on mice that after having alcohol for eight weeks showed cognitive deficits that lasted for the twelve weeks the mice were not given alcohol. This shows that the nature of the deficits is of permanent nature that can affect the beings long after withdrawing from alcohol consumption. Another nature of the cognitive deficits seems to be that these are global deficits that affect all sorts of learning abilities. The results also show that the nature of cognitive impairments is not related to any sort of damages that happen due to nutritional deficits or neurological changes.

The research proves that alcohol based cognitive damages are due to the alcohol causing neuro-chemical changes in the brain that affect the seat of learning and memory.

Reference: Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, June 2005