Alcohol affects the adolescent brain differently than the adult brain.🧠 Extensive studies show the human brain is not fully developed until about age 25. Teens who begin drinking before age 15 are 5x more likely to develop alcohol use disorder than if they wait until after age 21.
The brain undergoes massive changes during the teen years - mainly in the areas that affect decision making and impulse control. This makes the teen years a period of great promise, but also of potential risk - especially for addiction. Preventing and delaying substance use during this time is important to long-term health.
Highlights from a comprehensive report titled Alcohol & The Adult Brain: Immediate Impairment, Long-Term Consequences presented to the North Carolina Governor's Substance Abuse and Underage Drinking Prevention and Treatment Task Force show that:
* Emotional areas of the human brain mature before the frontal cortex. This is evident in the thrill-seeking, risky decision-making, and impulsiveness that define the adolescent years.
* Due to the immaturity of the frontal cortex, adolescent brains respond more to the promise of rewards & threats than adults brains - weighing immediate rewards as more valuable than future rewards.
* "Brain Imbalance" is why young people pay more attention to their peers and why they are more likely to do something risky without considering the consequences.
* Alcohol slows down brain activity. Negative effects of alcohol last far longer in a teen's brain than an adult's - up to 2 weeks longer.
* Teen alcohol use prior to full brain development can keep the good judgment and impulse-control part of the brain from properly developing.
* Alcohol can also damage the memory and learning parts of the brain.
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