A lot of the news about addiction is rather pessimistic, but a study found by an alert student by Fulton Crews and Kim Nixon might add a ray of hope.
Crews and Nixon addicted adult rats to alcohol, and observed that neurogenesis was inhibited. After only a week of abstinence from alcohol, the rats had a rebound effect, in which they began to produce more new cells in the hippocampus. You can read their entire article here.
On the other hand, Crews and Nixon, along with their colleagues, have also argued that adolescence is a time when neurogenesis is particularly vulnerable to inhibition due to alcohol use. You can read this article here.
4 Comments
nelsayed · November 18, 2006 at 12:20 pm
I think these are some very critical findings. Adolescent drinking seems to be on the rise in recent years. If neurogenisis is frequently inhibited by alcohol use such as “binge drinking” what are the implications for our youth?
triciagordon3213 · December 5, 2006 at 9:51 pm
These findings would be very useful for teens to know. Most teens think that alcohol won’t hurt them in the long run, they think the worst of their troubles is a hang over the next morning. Most teens ignore the negative long term effects of alcohol thinking that it won’t happen to them. I wonder if they knew that alcohol inhibits neurogenesis if they would feel the same way about the effects of alcohol.
MICHELLEdoerner · December 7, 2006 at 7:18 pm
This is an interesting study. I have never heard of a rebound effect regarding alcohol before, but I would guess that many people would not put too much focus on this finding, since the longterm effects of alcohol consumption are detrimental. I would also think media would be hesitant to alert people of these findings since neurogenesis is inhibited on a larger scale if someone drinks heavily. I am also curious if the results for human neurogenesis rebound growth is identical to the rats. This goes along with the findings on REM sleep, particularly how the body tries to make up for the damage in the short run, but ultimately can have severe negative effects in the long run.
ella1940 · October 24, 2008 at 7:41 pm
People who drink alcohol and go over the limited should know better and try a little harder to have control.
——————
Ella
Alcohol Rehab
Comments are closed.