Binge drinking trajectory and neuropsychological functioning among university students: a longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: Adolescence is a time of considerable neurodevelopment. Binge drinking (BD) during this period increases the vulnerability to its neurotoxic effects. This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the relationship between BD trajectory over university years and neuropsychological functioning. METHODS: Cohort-study. Two-year follow-up. A total of 89 university students were assessed: 40 Non-BD (at Initial and Follow-up), 16 Ex-BD (BD at Initial but not at Follow-up) and 33 BD (at both times). Neuropsychological assessment of working memory, episodic memory and executive abilities was carried out during their first (Initial) and third (Follow-up) academic year at the University of Santiago de Compostela. RESULTS: BD subjects performed less well on the Wechsler Memory Scale-III (WMS-III) Logical Memory Subtest (immediate theme recall, P=.034; delayed theme recall, P=.037; and percent retention, P=.035) and committed more perseverative errors on the Self-Ordered Pointing Task (SOPT) (P=.021) than Non-BD. There were no differences between Ex-BD and Non-BD. CONCLUSIONS: Binge drinking trajectory during adolescence is associated with neuropsychological performance. Persistent BD, but not Ex-BD, is associated with verbal memory and monitoring difficulties. This is compatible with the hypothesis that heavy alcohol use during adolescence may affect cognitive functions that rely on the temporomesial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Binge drinking and declarative memory in university students.

BACKGROUND: Binge drinking (BD), which is characterized by sporadic consumption of large quantities of alcohol in short periods, is prevalent among university students. Animal studies have shown that BD is associated with damage to the hippocampus, a region of the brain that plays a key role in learning and memory. The temporal cortex undergoes structural and functional changes during adolescence. The aim of the present study was to examine the association between BD and declarative memory in male and female university students. METHODS: The participants were 122 students (between 18 and 20 years of age): 62 BD (30 women) and 60 non-BD (29 women). The neuropsychological assessment included the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and Weschler Memory Scale-3rd ed. (WMS-III) Logical Memory subtest, to evaluate verbal declarative memory, and the WMS-III Family Pictures subtest, to measure visual declarative memory. RESULTS: The BD students remembered fewer words in the interference list and displayed greater proactive interference in the RAVLT; they performed worse in the Logical Memory subtest, both on immediate and delayed recall. There were no differences between the groups in performance of the Family Pictures subtest. No significant interactions were observed between BD and sex. CONCLUSIONS: Binge drinking is associated with poorer verbal declarative memory, regardless of sex. The findings are consistent with the vulnerability of the adolescent hippocampus to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol. Longitudinal studies will help determine the nature of this relationship, the neurodevelopmental trajectories for each sex, and the repercussions on academic performance.