Alcohol and its Effects Essay -- Alcoholism Drinking Essays

Alcohol and its Effects Does the brain control all forms of behavior? Is everything we do, say, think and feel a direct output from nothing but the brain? Is it justifiable to think of the brain as interconnected box within box with inputs and outputs? The focus of this paper is on the input alcohol and how the processes generate a certain type of behavior output. This focus of alcohol input and behavior output will demonstrate that indeed brain is and does equal all forms of behavior. When alcohol is inputted into our brain, it induces many forms of typical behavior outputs such as impaired judgement, extreme emotion, and slowed behavior. Long-term effects include damage in cognitive behavior especially associated with the frontal lobes of the brain such as "slowed processing of information, difficulty in learning new material, deficits in abstraction and problem solving, and reduced visuospatial abilities." (1). The reason for this kind of damage in cognitive behavior can be explained the alcohols effect on the brain structure itself. Researchers have found that brains of alcoholics are smaller and have an increased number of brain tissue loss then the comparable nonalcoholic. Known as the premature aging hypothesis, alcohol is stated to "accelerate normal aging" and make the young alcoholics older then they really are. This kind of aging due to alcohol allows the younger non-alcoholics of the same age, faster and quicker in cognitive abilities. (1) So what is the underlying mechanisms of this kind of output behavior? What goes on inside the boxes within boxes that cause actions such as slow cognitive output? These behavioral outputs can be explained from alcohol's effects on the humans' smallest box, the neuron. Wi... ...me reactions going on in our brains. And what are those 'reactions' exactly? I don't know." (5). There are many 'reactions' that occurs in our brain which produce behavior. Alcohol is one example of them. Internet Sources: 1) Alcohol-Related Cognitive Impairments. An Overview of How Alcoholism May Affect the Workings of the Brain http://wilsontxt.hwwilson.com/pdfhtml/04716/N5AQW/ES6.htm" 2)Serotonin's Role in Alcohol's Effects on the Brain http://wilsontxt.hwwilson.com/pdfhtml/04716/N7AQW/6S8.htm" 3) Neurochemical Mechanisms Underlying Alcohol Withdrawal http://wilsontxt.hwwilson.com/pdfhtml/04716/N8AQQ/5SD.htm 4)Media Awareness Project, maintains an extensive Drugnews Index of drug-related news clippings http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n910/a02.html 5)Neurobiology and Behavior http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neur/neuro00/topic1.html