This brain damage increases the risk of abnormalities in mood and cognitive abilities, increases the risk of dementia and additionally binge drinkers have an increased risk of developing chronic alcoholism.
Similar to people who have been detoxified multiple times from alcohol, binge drinkers show a higher rate of emotional disturbance.
Impairments in spatial working memory and pattern recognition tasks also have been found in heavy binge drinkers.
Additionally, immediate and delayed recall of verbal and visual information is impaired; conversely, semantic organizational ability is better in binge drinkers compared to non-binge drinkers.
Binge drinkers were found to have significantly higher scores of dysfunctional impulsivity compared to control groups.
This suggests that impaired prefrontal cortex function may occur at an early age in binge drinkers.
Similar to binge drinkers, individuals suffering from alcohol dependence develop changes to neurotransmitter systems, which occur as a result of kindling and sensitization during withdrawal.
Time (magazine) ran a cover story about female binge drinkers.
