Binge Drinking (BD) pattern is firmly established among adolescents and young people. This pattern has raised a strong concern within the neuroscience community due to its possible impact on specific brain regions still maturing. Research with animal models demonstrates that BD may have serious structural and functional effects during these ages. Some regions like the prefrontal cortex or the hippocampus and the cognitive processes in which these structures play a role seem to be specific targets of alcohol. Results provided by the scarce studies carried out in humans support the evidence from previous animal experiments. However, we are far from being able to answer if this pattern of consumption has a special effect in the adolescent brain and what the short and long-term consequences are. Common limitations in human studies include the insufficient control of powerful confounding factors, the use of designs that does not allow differentiation between markers and effects, the use of reduced samples and the lack of replication studies. Although the innocuousness hypothesis is no longer sustained and experimental evidence has accumulated showing the risk associated with BD, results have been somewhat overinterpretated. The valuable contributions of cross-sectional designs should be complemented by the contributions of prospective longitudinal studies with appropriated sample sizes and a higher control of critical variables in order to identify short and long-term structural and neurocognitive consequences.Key words: alcohol, binge drinking, adolescence, brain, cognitive function.El patrón de consumo intensivo intermitente de alcohol (Binge Drinking) se ha consolidado entre adolescentes y jóvenes. Este patrón (BD) ha despertado una fuerte preocupación en la comunidad neurocientífica por su posible impacto en un cerebro aún en maduración. La investigación con modelos animales demuestra los graves efectos estructurales y funcionales que un patrón BD puede tener a estas edades. Algunas regiones como el cortex prefrontal y el hipocampo, de maduración más tardía, y los importantes procesos que éstas organizan, parecen diana especial de la acción del alcohol. Los escasos estudios realizados en humanos van en la dirección de lo adelantado por la investigación animal. Sin embargo, estamos lejos de poder responder si este patrón BD afecta de forma especial al cerebro adolescente y de precisar cuáles son sus consecuencias a corto y largo plazo. Son limitaciones habituales en los estudios el insuficiente control de poderosos factores de confusión, la utilización de diseños que no permiten diferenciar entre marcadores y efectos, el uso de muestras reducidas o la ausencia de réplicas. Aunque se hace insostenible una hipótesis de inocuidad y se acumula evidencia que nos advierte sobre los peligros de esta forma de consumo, se ha producido en general una cierta sobreinterpretación de los resultados. A la valiosa contribución realizada por estudios transversales debe seguir la de estudios longitudinales, en muestras de tamaño ap...
The important implications generated by binge drinking among university students justify the interest to determine which factors predict its occurrence. Specifically, this study aims to assess the role of personality and drinking onset in predicting weekly alcohol consumption, and the impact of the whole set of variables in predicting the number of consequences associated with consumption in undergraduates. Two hundred and thirteen freshmen who were intensive consumers (binge drinkers) from the University Complutense of Madrid were evaluated. All of them filled in a selfregistration of consumption, the BIS-11, the NEO-FFI and the IECI consequences associated with intake. The hierarchical regression analysis shows that the drinking onset appears to be a relevant predictor variable in explaining weekly consumption and the number of consequences. The same can be said of the weekly consumption variable with regard to the number of consequences. In general, the influence of personality is quite limited. It is interesting to point out that responsibility and impulsivity, along with age, explain most of the weekly consumption behavior among males. With respect to the consequences of consumption, only impulsivity and neuroticism contribute to explain them, but with less strength than age and weekly consumption. Our results justify the need to plan tighter interventions and consider new predictors that help to explain further weekly consumption in women. Las importantes implicaciones que genera el consumo intensivo de alcohol entre los jóvenes justifican el interés por determinar qué factores predicen su aparición. Concretamente, en este estudio se analiza el papel de la personalidad y edad de inicio en el consumo de alcohol en la predicción del consumo semanal de alcohol, y de todas estas variables en la predicción del número de consecuencias asociadas al consumo en jóvenes universitarios.Se evalúan 213 consumidores intensivos de primer curso de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Todos ellos cumplimentaron un autoregistro de consumo, el BIS-11, el NEO-FFI y el IECI de consecuencias asociadas a la ingesta.Los análisis de regresión de orden jerárquico muestran que la edad de inicio resulta ser una variable predictora relevante tanto en la explicación del consumo semanal como del número de consecuencias.Lo mismo puede decirse de la variable consumo semanal respecto a la del número de consecuencias.En líneas generales, el influjo de las variables de personalidad es bastante limitado. Tan sólo mencionar la responsabilidad e impulsividad, que junto con la edad, llegan a explicar gran parte de la conducta de consumo semanal entre varones. En lo que respecta a las consecuencias derivadas del consumo, sólo resultan explicativas, aunque en menor medida que la edad y el consumo semanal, la impulsividad y el neuroticismo.Esto justifica la necesidad de planificar intervenciones más ajustadas y de analizar nuevos predictores en el caso de las mujeres que permitan explicar en mayor medida su conducta de consumo semanal.Palabras cla...
Alcohol intensive consumption (AIC) in university students has important clinical and social implications that motivate the need to look into the factors that favor its apparition and consolidation. More concretely, this study assesses the role of impulsivity and the associated expectations about consumption, as well as the possible mediation of expectations in the relationship between impulsivity and AIC. Three hundred and three students in the first year at the University Complutense of Madrid that carry out AIC kept a self-record of their consumption, a scale of expectations associated to the ingestion (IECI, 2012), and the BIS-11 scale of impulsiveness. In all cases, both men and women, doubles the grams of alcohol that define an AIC, as well as the frequency in the execution of this behaviour, which increases the probability that these negative consequences come about. No differences were found between men's and women's expectations associated to AIC, nor in their total impulsivity scores. The hierarchy regression analysis shows that expectations do not moderate the relationship between impulsivity and consumption. Both variables influence the independent mode of consumption (grams of ingested alcohol and frequency of ingestion), with a higher weight on expectations from both, men and women, but being significant the input of impulsivity only among males. This justifies the need to plan interventions that address the modification of these expectations, including, in the case of males, the aspects related to impulsivity.
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