IOWA CITY, Iowa – A study done by researchers at the University of Missouri, using a test developed at the University of Iowa, has correlated heavy binge drinking with diminished decision-making over time.
The study, published in the June edition of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, compared 200 randomly sampled individuals from a larger group of Missouri college students who voluntarily reported their drinking frequency during their freshman through their junior years. These subjects were then asked to complete the “Iowa Gambling Task” — a widely used method to test decision-making developed at the UI.
The students were divided into four levels of drinking based on their tendency to have more than five drinks in one sitting: low binge drinkers, moderate binge drinkers, binge drinkers who started low and progressively increased to heavy binge drinking, and consistently heavy binge drinkers. When put into direct comparison, the largest gap in performance on the test was between low binge drinkers and heavy binge drinkers, with the former performing better, according to the study.
Anna Goudriaan, the author of the study at Missouri and now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, said even though poor decision-making was linked to heavy binge drinking by the study, it’s unclear what comes first: the binge drinking or the bad choices.
“We cannot say for sure in this study [when the damage to judgment occurs], because we only tested people once, when they were 21,” Goudriaan said. “More research will have to be done before we really can find causality for the subjects.”
However, she said, some data suggest heavy drinking can have negative effects on a still developing brain. In addition, the prefrontal cortex — the area of the brain used for decision-making and identity development — continues to mature until the early- to mid-20s, Goudriaan said.
Article courtesy of the Daily Iowan at the University of Iowa.