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The Effects of Alcohol on the Adolescent Brain

Evidence has confirmed that adolescence, broadly defined as the second decade of life, is a vital period in both structural and functional brain development (1). This contradicts long held beliefs that the brain has fully matured by the time of puberty. These teenage years are also associated with high risk-taking behaviour, personal exploration and a tendency to experiment with drugs, more specifically alcohol (2). So in a stage of life, where the brain is attempting to make critical progress in cognitive development and physical structure, it also being potentially harmed and hindered by the negative effects of drinking. Logically, when given this phase of frantic personal evolution, which essentially shapes one’s basic identity for the rest of their life (3), the brain should be kept unblemished by these kinds of harmful substances. For, during adolescence, heavy use of alcohol has significant long-term effects on the brain’s capacity for cognitive growth, physical development and the potential to complete certain stages in Erik Erikson’s theory of personality.

The adolescent brain is highly impressionable and indeed moulded by experience. From disuse, an extensive number of synapses, the point of connection between two nerve cells, are destroyed, or pruned during this stage (4). The connections that have been activated most frequently are preserved. The synapses that are deemed necessary and unnecessary are based on the individual’s experience, influences and decisions made in the world. This essentially means that if one spends their adolescence watching television and neglecting study, their brain becomes irrevocably wired to watch television and neglect study. The brain eliminates the point of connection between routine and study, and sustains the link with television. This stage of pruning diminishes in the early twenties (5), meaning that decisions made in one’s youth may...