4+ day, 18+ hour ago   (806+ words) New research suggests that when people with alcohol use disorder stop drinking, their brains show a sudden, sharp drop in the ability to burn a secondary fuel source called acetate, before recovering just a few weeks later. The study, published…...

5+ day, 18+ hour ago   (793+ words) Alcohol is frequently consumed in social settings, prompting scientists to explore how it might alter these empathic abilities. Prior research has yielded mixed results, leading researchers to wonder if the type of beverage matters. For example, a 2018 study found that…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (955+ words) A recent study in mice suggests that social isolation drives increased alcohol consumption by strengthening a specific neural pathway in the brain, though this effect appears to operate differently in males and females. The findings provide a biological mechanism for…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago   (758+ words) According to biological models of addiction, chronic substance use creates a disconnect between the brain’s reward centers and its executive control hubs. Over time, the brain assigns a disproportionate motivational weight to the addictive substance. This means that environmental cues,…...

4+ week, 1+ day ago   (395+ words) Mice with more persistent anxiety-like behaviour showed stronger learning about alcohol-related rewards, while disrupting a cannabinoid receptor in the brain weakened that learning, according to a study published in Translational Psychiatry. Anxiety is not always the same. Some anxiety is…...

4+ week, 1+ day ago   (424+ words) Heavy drinking during adolescence may leave the adult brain unusually sensitive to alcohol, according to a study published in Molecular Psychiatry. Experiments in male mice found that binge-like drinking during adolescence permanently changed how alcohol affected hippocampal nerve cells, although…...