Ive read that the adolescent brain continues to develop through the early 20s. What are the long-term effects of alcohol use on a developing brain?
Studies suggest that the adolescent brain goes through a series of structural and functional changes that may make it more susceptible to long-term impairments due to alcohol use. These dynamic changes affect the planning, decision-making, impulse control, voluntary movement, and speech-production processes.18 Specifically, the American Medical Association reports that “…frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections continue until age 16, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until age 20.”1 “The hippocampus handles many types of memory and learning and suffers from the worst alcohol-related brain damage in teens.
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