How many times have you used the phrase “I drink to forget my ex”, and the next day you remember it more and worse with a tenacious hangover, science has ruled and tells us that this is “False”.
The famous “drink to forget” may have gone down in history. Although it is true that good drinks usually mean that the next day you do not remember everything you have done, bad things (precisely those that we want to erase from memory) could take hold in our brain in a more iron way than if we did not drink.
This is what emerges from a study published in the journal Translational Psychiatrycarried out by researchers from the John Hopkins University, Baltimore (USA). They divided laboratory mice into two groups: one drank water for two hours and the other was given large amounts of alcohol in the same time interval. Subsequently, both groups were made to listen to a specific sound that was followed by an electric shock. The next day, the rodents heard the same sound, only this time it wasn’t followed by the shock. The results showed that the mice that had been made drunk were more afraid (remembered the download better) than those who had drunk water.
The conclusion of the work is that alcohol perpetuates the feeling of fear
Extinction of this memory requires receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate (a substance that is related to memory)and when alcohol compounds bind to these receptors, they interfere with synapses (neural communication)causing animals that have drunk alcohol «Don’t get used to encouragement and don’t forget your previous bad experience»explains the neurologist Paul Irimavowel of the Spanish Society of Neurology.
said neurotransmitter (involved in memory extinction) and drink do not get along. “Glutamate produces rejection of alcohol. It is often used in clinic to get patients to stop drinking”says the psychiatrist and president of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry Julio Bobes.
Evades, but does not erase traumas
Also vibrates with: Is it true that alcohol kills brain cells?
That alcohol makes us remember things more easily was something that a study of the University of Texas (USA), in 2011. According to this research, raising the elbow activates certain areas of the brain related precisely to learning and memory.
But even so, the idea that drinking to forget is a good way to get rid of bad memories is so widespread that even the study ensures that the majority of people affected by various traumas (between 60% and 80%) compulsively drink alcohol. «Many of the patients with post-traumatic stress get drunk in order to escape from the situation, forget or sleep more easily»Irima adds. And the researchers conclude: «If the effects of alcohol on unpleasant memories are similar in humans, our work could help us better understand how these memories work and how to better target therapies in people with post-traumatic stress.».
Taken from El País