How Does Alcohol Affect the Frontal Lobe?
“Hello. I am Dr. Bernardo Savariego. I’m a medical doctor specializing in addiction psychiatry in Miami Florida. This is a little bit about how alcohol affects the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is our center of reasoning. This is what gives us our judgment and controls our acts. The alcohol tends to disinhibit the frontal lobe so that you are not going to control your actions and your judgment is going to be impaired. Now, the way this happens appears to be because alcohol tends to change your brain over time. The brain has neurotransmitters like GABA and Glutamate that are very much affected by alcohol. Now these neurotransmitters are affected not only while you’re drinking, but after you stop drinking, because the brain has to adapt. So, if there is a change in the makeup of these neurotransmitters and that is why the person becomes a compulsive drinking because of this change in brain chemistry.
