St. Louis Scientist Explains Alcoholic Blackouts

Unfortunately that’s easier said than done! What is a hippocampus, anyway?

An amazing article from a scientist at the Washington University School of Medicine here in St. Louis from summer 2011 explained how alcohol affects the brain, and why people black out after drinking too much of it.

Perhaps you have seen a person who drank a lot of alcohol and was still able to dance, converse, and unfortunately even steer a car down the road – who couldn’t remember any of it the next day. Sometimes those alcohol-induced blackouts last a few minutes and sometimes several hours. They are a type of amnesia.

The Neuroscientists have now identified the brain cells that are involved in the blackout and figured out the molecular mechanism that makes them work. Apparently it’s not that the alcohol actually kills the brain cells. Rather, it interferes with some of the most important receptors inside of the brain. The neurons in the hippocampus produce steroids which stop memories from forming. The difference in these “hippos” can be easily seen during a scan of the brain.

In simple language, the brain’s function is altered because of how the alcohol affects the receptors inside of it.

More specifically, Yukitoshi Izumi, MD, PhD, reseach professor of psychiatry at this University says, “The mechanism involves NMDA receptors that transmit glutamate, which carries signals between neurons. An NMDA receptor is like a double-edged sword because too much activity and too little can be toxic. We’ve found that exposure to alcohol inhibits some receptors and later activates others, causing neurons to manufacture steroids that inhibit LTP and memory formation.” Izumi said that the various receptors interfere with “synaptic plasticity” in the brain’s hippocampus. Since plastic is a substance that bends and can be molded in many different ways, this term is used to describe the changeable properties where the nerve cells connect and communicate.

They just don’t work the same way when they are soused. It’s more like having a football team try to run down the field to score a touchdown with about a thousand fans swarming onto the field at the same time, interfering in the process. The alcohol interferes in the working mechanism of the brain, so that everything is similarly a mess.