July 9, 2014

What drives a child to abuse alcohol?



By looking at 40 different factors in a 14 year old teens, including brain structure and function, personality, life experiences and genetics, researchers can predict with 70% accuracy who will go on to develop binge drinking within the next two years. Impulsivity, hopelessness, sensation-seeking traits, lack of conscientiousness, and other variables such as life events and a family history of drug use contribute to the likelihood of binge drinking.  Whether or not the child had had a single drink at age 14 was a particularly powerful predictor, the researchers found.