British psychologists have found that teen binge drinking causes losses in short-term memory.

Researchers at the University of Northumbria found that heavy drinking - five or more drinks in one sitting - caused teens to perform poorly on tests of memory. Particularly affected was "prospective memory," which involves remembering to do everyday tasks such as calling a friend. The students in the study were 17 to 19 years old.

Dr. Thomas Heffernan said the harm might become long-lasting or permanent. "They could be storing up problems for their futures," he said.

The study was presented at the conference of the British Psychological Society.

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Labels: binge_drinking, effects, memory

Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia found that the chemical in marijuana affects adult and adolescent rats differently. In particular, adolescent rats lost more long and short-term memory.

Dr. Ian McGregor and his colleagues tested the rats' memories right after they ingested the drug, and again after all traces of it had left their bodies. The adolescent rats had deeper memory impairment. In addition, the adult rats avoided the "room" where the marijuana had been "served," but the teen rats did not.

"Cannabis produces much greater long-term changes in adolescent than adult rat brains," Dr. McGregor said.

This study appears in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Labels: brain_damage, marijuana, memory