10 EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL ON THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM - ARTE

The effects of alcohol on the nervous system and brain can occur both if it is consumed in the short term - a typical drunkenness - or if it is consumed frequently - in addiction. However, occasional use is usually less serious, while addiction can have serious consequences.

A beer or two a day is not going to hurt. What if it will are the excesses and frequent drunkenness. Some effects such as difficulty walking, blurred vision or memory loss are temporary and if they recover. The real problem is when the damage becomes persistent; It is when there is a problem of alcoholism and possible damage to the nervous system or brain.

There are several factors that influence the likelihood of consequences arising from alcoholism: the general health of the person, the continuity of the drinking habit, age, education, genetics, family history, gender, age when drinking began…

How do alterations in the nervous system occur?

Alcohol affects brain chemistry by altering the levels of neurotransmitters, chemicals that transmit the signals that control thought processes, behaviors, and emotions. They are excitatory - they stimulate brain activity - or inhibitory - they decrease brain activity.

Alcohol increases the effects of the neurotransmitter GABA in the brain, which causes slow movements and difficulty speaking.

At the same time, alcohol inhibits the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, which increases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that creates the sensation of pleasure when drinking.

The most important effects of alcohol on the nervous system and brain

Anxiety, depression, aggressiveness, stress

The brain has a balance of chemicals, and alcohol upsets that balance. This can affect:

Behavior
Thoughts
Feelings
Emotions

Drinking makes most people feel better, less anxious, and more sociable.

However, if you drink too much, the brain begins to be affected and the feelings of pleasure can turn into feelings of anxiety, aggressiveness or depression.

If you drink excessively, you are more likely to develop depressive symptoms.

Drinking regularly lowers your levels of serotonin in the brain, the neurotransmitter that regulates mood.

In addition, drinking too much can have negative consequences in your personal relationships with family, friends, partner and at your work.

This makes the depression even greater and it enters a vicious cycle.

Some signs that you have a problem with alcohol are:

You argue or have problem behaviors often or after drinking alcohol
To feel down
Insomnia
You feel down all the time
Feeling anxious when you normally feel calm
Paranoias

It prevents proper brain development in adolescents

Consuming large amounts of alcohol in adolescence can result in great difficulties for the brain to develop properly.

The most notable deficits are difficulties in the retrieval of verbal and non-verbal information (language comprehension) and visual-spatial functioning.

Adolescents are much more predisposed to developing cognitive deficits such as learning and memory difficulties.

This is because the brain has not yet fully developed, and at that stage the brain is remodeling itself with changes in the neural connectivity of different parts of the brain.

Memory damage (hippocampus)

Alcohol affects the hippocampus, the area of the brain that is involved in memory storage. Even a small amount of alcohol can make you forget what you were doing while drinking.

In drunkenness, the brain processes information more slowly and the ability to memorize decreases. This is when you have the typical memory loss from the night before in hangovers.

This short-term memory loss does not damage the brain, although the frequency will. That is, having continuous binges or drinking excessively on a frequent basis will damage the brain and its ability to memorize.

Therefore, if a person has been drinking heavily for years, they may have difficulty memorizing even one day when they are not drinking. This is when the condition can be permanent.

In this article you can learn about foods that improve memory.

Impulsiveness

The prefrontal cortex regulates impulsivity and intervenes in the organization of behavior.

Drinking too much can affect connections in these areas and cause impulsive things to be done that would not have been done in normal situations.

Prevents the growth of new cells

Since 1960 it has been known that new neurons are generated in the brain during adulthood in a process called neurogenesis. These new cells originate from cells that can divide indefinitely.

However, with high doses of alcohol, the growth of these new cells is interrupted and in the long term results in deficits in areas such as the hippocampus.

Although the previous process still needs several studies to be confirmed, if it is known that during high alcohol intakes thousands of neurons can be lost.

During a binge it can reduce the number of neurons in the brain by 1,000,000.

Psychosis

A high level of addiction to alcohol can lead to psychosis. It is a serious mental illness that causes hallucinations, paranoia and illusions.

On the other hand, when the person suddenly stops drinking, they may suffer the so-called "delirium tremens" or alcohol withdrawal syndrome, which includes: headache, agitation, severe tremors, nausea and vomiting, severe sweating, drowsiness, cramps and even hallucinations.

It occurs due to the habituation that has occurred in the brain of the alcoholic person. When you stop alcohol, there is an over-stimulation by the adrenergic system leading to autonomic excitability and psychomotor agitation.

Wernicke – Korsakoff syndrome

Approximately 80% of alcoholics have a thiamine deficiency and some of that percentage develop the so-called Wernicke – Korsakoff Syndrome.

It is a disease in which two conditions occur together: Wernicke's encephalopathy and Korsakoff syndrome, different conditions that are both due to brain damage caused by a lack of vitamin B (thiamine).

Wernicke encephalopathy is caused by harmful changes in the brain, usually due to a lack of vitamin B-1 (thiamine).

Your symptoms are:

Abnormal eye movements
Loss of muscle coordination
Confusion
Loss of mental activity
Abstinence syndrome

Korsakoff syndrome or psychosis tends to develop as the symptoms of Wernicke syndrome disappear.