One of the dangers of consuming too much alcohol is the possibility of blacking out and experiencing a period of temporary memory loss or amnesia. Blackouts and memory loss are very common for alcoholics. For a person to experience the negative side effect of memory loss, they would have to be drinking alcohol like an alcoholic, in essence, numerous times a day, every single day of the week. Many people interpret excessive blackouts and memory loss to be early "high risk indicators" of alcoholism.
Function
Alcohol has strong, far-reaching effects on many parts of the brain. When alcohol is consumed, immediately the body starts the process of breaking it down. As this happens, breakdown substances called ethyl esters accelerate the motion of positively charged potassium ions from the brain cells into the outer membranes. This causes a negative charge inside of the brain cells, which slightly damages the body's calcium channels. Brain cells depend on the calcium channels to communicate with the body's other cells.
Other Brain Effects
In the presence of alcohol, the brain receives far less oxygen. Excessive alcohol also has a destructive effect on the body's central nervous system. These effects, combined with the impaired calcium channels, disrupt the body's hippocampus (in the brain's medial temporal lobe) activity. Alcohol disrupts spatial reference memory tasks and lowers the levels of glutamate released in the synapses of the hippocampus in the brain.
Dementia
According to research conducted at John Hopkins University, excessive alcohol consumption also seems to increase the risk of dementia for individuals later in life (memory loss is a large part of the dementia disorder). People who drank over 14 alcoholic drinks weekly were found to have a higher risk of dementia.
Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome
Alcohol dementia is called Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. In this disorder, people have lower thiamine levels as a result of frequent alcohol consumption (daily alcohol intake such as that of alcoholics). Vitamin B1 supplements, however, can help reverse this deficiency. This disease leads to impaired memory, learning abilities and problem-solving skills. One identifying symptom of this disease is that individuals make up vivid and highly detailed accounts of experiences that never actually happened.
Warning
Excessive alcohol drinking can have a lot of negative impacts, including permanent brain damage. Adolescents and young adults can cause more permanent damage to their brains than older drinkers, according to research conducted at Duke University. Heavy drinkers who are young become far more vulnerable to the dangerous neurotoxic effects that come as a result of consuming large quantities of alcohol. So not only can excessive alcohol cause memory loss, it can also damage learning abilities in the brain as well. Similar results were also found in studies conducted by Dr. Thomas Heffernan, a Northumbria University psychologist.
Tags: memory loss, calcium channels, alcohol consumption, excessive alcohol, hippocampus brain, learning abilities