18 November 2014

Factors Common in Teens at Risk for Alcohol Abuse

Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) are zeroing in on brain factors and behaviors that put teens at risk of alcohol use and abuse even before they start drinking.

Four abstracts resulting from the Adolescent Development Study, which is funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, were presented this past Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

The Adolescent Development Study, jointly run by the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and GUMC, is a wide-ranging effort to understand how a teen brain “still under construction,” as the NIH puts it, can lead to risky behaviors such as alcohol and drug use.

Identifying Differences

John VanMeter, director of the Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging, and associate professor of neurology at GUMC, and Diana Fishbein, director of the Center for Translational Research on Adversity, Neurodevelopment and Substance Abuse (C-TRANS) at UMSOM, run the project.

What this study is attempting to do is identify the differences in the brains of adolescents who go on to misuse alcohol and other drugs. If we know what is different, we may be able to develop strategies that can prevent the behavior.

Observing Connections

The abstracts provide new evidence that adolescents at higher risk of alcoholism have reduced connections in key brain networks. One of the studies suggests that reduced prefrontal cortex development predates alcohol use and may be related to future alcohol use disorders.

Another abstract shows that a weaker connection between executive control in the prefrontal cortex and the insular cortex (involved in processing emotions and responsive to drug cues in addicts) is associated with higher levels of impulsivity, which in turn is associated with alcohol disorders.

Sugar and DHA

One abstract showed that youth with high amounts of added sugar intake seek immediate rewards more than those with lower levels in their diets. Those with increased sugar intake also show greater activation in brain areas linked to impulsivity and emotional affect.

And preliminary findings of dietary intake of DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid, study showed that despite equivalent impulsivity those with low DHA appear to have greater activation in brain regions involved in paying attention and executive function than those with high DHA suggesting a compensatory response.

View Abstracts and Posters Press Release