If you suffer from a bad memory, there could be a simple solution to help improve it. Just grab a drink after studying something new, because scientists say booze could boost your ability to retain information.
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A group of scientists from the University of Exeter conducted a study to determine how alcohol consumption can affect the brain. To do so, they randomly split a group of 88 social drinkers into two groups and told them to either drink as much as they wanted or not at all. Then they were each given a word-learning task.
After analyzing the data, they determined that those who drank alcohol could remember more of what they learned than those who did not.
"Our research not only showed that those who drank alcohol did better when repeating the word-learning task, but that this effect was stronger among those who drank more," Celia Morgan, study researcher, said in a release.
While researchers aren’t sure of the cause, they believe alcohol consumption may influence long-term memory.
“Alcohol blocks the learning of new information and therefore the brain has more resources available to lay down other recently learned information into long-term memory,” Morgan said. “The theory is that the hippocampus – the brain area really important in memory – switches to ‘consolidating’ memories, transferring from short into longer-term memory.”
Despite the results, scientists noted that the negative effects of heavy alcohol consumption should be considered.
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