Binge Drinking and its Effects on YOUR Brain

I hate to be a downer but on this Tuesday after the long Labor Day weekend, but I cant help but feel, well, DUMB! I believe the culprit for my numbing demeanor is the A AA A AAAA Alcohol. Over the weekend I consumed alot of alcohol and this has been my M.O. since I began college, as I imagine I have this in common with most reading this. So this got me to thinking what kind of damage I have incurred over the years and if the cells I have nodoubtly killed can be regenerated.

First lets clear up what binge drinking is. It is commonly defined as consuming five or more drinks in about 2 hours for men, or four or more drinks for women. Most twenty somethings can accomplish this task with ease on a typically weekend night.

The following is an excerpt fromt he NewYork Times Titled "The Hangover that lasts" describing one particular study:

Much of the evidence for the impact of frequent binge-drinking comes from some simple but elegant studies done on lab rats by Fulton T. Crews and his former student Jennifer Obernier. Dr. Crews, the director of the University of North Carolina Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, and Dr. Obernier have shown that after a longstanding abstinence following heavy binge-drinking, adult rats can learn effectively — but they cannot relearn.

When put into a tub of water and forced to continue swimming until they find a platform on which to stand, the sober former binge-drinking rats and the normal control rats (who had never been exposed to alcohol) learned how to find the platform equally well. But when the experimenters abruptly moved the platform, the two groups of rats had remarkably different performances. The rats without previous exposure to alcohol, after some brief circling, were able to find the new location. The former binge-drinking rats, however, were unable to find the new platform; they became confused and kept circling the site of the old platform.

This circling occurs, Dr. Crews says, because the former binge-drinking rats continued to show neurotoxicity in the hippocampus long after (in rat years) becoming sober. On a microscopic level, Dr. Crews has shown that heavy binge-drinking in rats diminishes the genesis of nerve cells, shrinks the development of the branchlike connections between brain cells and contributes to neuronal cell death. The binges activate an inflammatory response in rat brains rather than a pure regrowth of normal neuronal cells. Even after longstanding sobriety this inflammatory response translates into a tendency to stay the course, a diminished capacity for relearning and maladaptive decision-making.

Studies have also shown that binge drinking clearly damages the adolescent brain more than the adult brain. The forebrain — specifically the orbitofrontal cortex, which uses associative information to envision future outcomes — can be significantly damaged by binge drinking. Indeed, heavy drinking in early or middle adolescence, with this consequent cortical damage, can lead to diminished control over cravings for alcohol and to poor decision-making. One can easily fail to recognize the ultimate consequences of one’s actions.

Does the research on rats have relevance for the more complex brains and behavior of humans? We have come to think so. Dr. Crews has shown that the cingulate cortex in the human brain shows signs of neuroinflammation after repeated alcohol binges, similar to that in rats. Sidney Cohen, one of the clearest thinkers and researchers on the effects of alcohol and drugs on humans (now deceased, he was at one time the director of the drug abuse division at the National Institute of Mental Health), pointed out that we are programmed as a species for accelerated learning in adolescence and young adulthood. This heightened capacity is the reason we go into apprenticeships or on to college and graduate school in these crucial years.

As Dr. Cohen noted, we not only learn specific skills during these years, with our brains having developed more fully, we also learn in a more subtle way how to deal with ambiguity. Ambiguity comes into play when the goalposts are moved. Can we change course? Can we deal with this ambiguity and with nuances?

The one piece of good news is that exercise has been shown to stimulate the regrowth and development of normal neural tissue in former alcohol-drinking mice. In fact, this neurogenesis was greater in the exercising former drinking mice than that induced by exercise in the control group that had never been exposed to alcohol.
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So the bad news the damage is already done, good news is we can grow new brain tissue with controlled drinking and alot of exercise. Now we have double the reason so stay fit, not only does it make us attractive but it will make us smarter as well. If that doesn’t get ur lazy ass off the couch then u deserve to be fat and dumb.

College Football is HERE!

It’s finally here; productivity plummets in anticipation of your favorite team taking the field Saturday. When grown men and women stuff whiskey down their pants and in their bras minutes before kickoff even though they have been drinking since 10:30 am, but the fear of not having a drink for even 1 minute is more terrifying than having ur starting QB sat on by Terrance Cody.

Why do we do this? Cus were Fucking awesome and can still rage like were in college. And some of us are still in college like my good friend TBarry he is still living the dream going into his 7th football season!!! Some view this as excessive but I applaud him, who else has the audacity to have their parents pay for 6.5 years of out of state tuition, and admit it you would trade ur Day job to be in BaRrys shoes right now. Why is he still in school? Well there is the semester he took off claiming he was "studying abroad in the SEC" during which time he slept on my couch in the Burn for 2 week attending every Derby Days event and thus becoming an honorary Sigma Chi. He says they "dropped" the class he needed this summer. But I call Bullshit he even walked in the spring effectively faking his graduation going the whole 9 yards having family and friends come in for it. This is only a fraction of what this kid has accomplished in his tenure in Oxford. So in the spirit of College Football we salute You Thomas Barry for not surrendering to social norms that say u must graduate in 4 years and go get some dead end job. You say NO to the MAN even though ur going on 25 and Freshman girls probably think ur creepy, but that’s okay because when we wake up at 8am to go to work your sleeping in till noon or you may be up also but that is for a totally different reason.....

I pulled these classics off FaceBook

Old PPL and Facebook

Click on the picture to Read what Happened when this unsuspecting lady learned the hard way that FB is not so private! HAHA


"Ur Love Cave" Really? How big of a slut are you? Okay I Understand you may be a frustraded cougar who has not been laid in a couple months but using a phrase like "Getting Mounted by such a stong and powerful man was a pleasent surprise" is a little much. And if you feel the need to write these things at least send a text where you know 100% that ur audience is limited to 1.

Cash for Refridgerators

Your refrigerator could soon be on the run from you. Cash for Clunkers was ok but now they are just making shit up to pass.
link: http://www.reuters.com/article/mnEnergy/idUS225779891520090825

Breckenridge 4th of July Bowl

As the GPS read 13,663 ft the air is a little thin but the juice was well worth the squeeze. After what seemed like endless switch backs with unforgiving inclines we had finally made it to the summit. The reward was an icy cold PBR and a nice ski run down the mountain in the middle of the summer. Usually this time of year I have my toes buried in the sugar white Gulf of Mexico sand with Corona and lime on tap. I have to say this was a stellar change of pace; the view of the surrounding ranges atop the peak was humbling Mother Nature’s way of letting us know how small we really are. Luckily that day she rewarded our exhausting hike with powder blue skies and picturesque clouds.


Flag Posted up at the peak, Im a God Damn AMERICAN!! Seemed to be the phase of the day...

This Ridge to the peak was very steep off to the right if u make a wrong step ur tumbling the whole way down

Photographic Art

This is my first attempt at a framless picture. It was created with siple wood frame, picture laid ontop and epoxy poured over it to bond the print to the frame.

Free Ringtones for iPhone

You would think that Apple would let you make a ring tone out of a song you already own from the iTunes store for free, but this is not the case. The song cost .99 and when u make the RT they charge you another 99 cents. To me this is ridiculous and a fee no one should have to pay. Below I will show you how to make your own ringtones out of any song in ur library weather you bought it or downloaded illegally.

Step 1: Select a song from your library and right click on it, select “Get Info”, Click on the “Options” tab, Select the start and stop time boxes. Make the length about 30 secs(or whatever is your favorite part of the song.

Step 2: Click and hold onto the modified song and move it to ur desk top by dragging it.

Step 3: Once it is moved change the extension (ie mp3) to m4r. This is the format you must have it in to move it back into the ringtones folder in ur iTunes.

Step 4: Now that you have the file modified all you need to do is import it back, iTunes will recognize it and put it in with the ringtones.

Step 5: Now you just need to sync ur iPhone and it will show up as a custom tone on ur iPhone.

IMPORTANT:
Remember to change the start/stop times back to the full length of the song on the song that you modified or when u you go to play it again it will just play the abbreviated version.

This is a pretty simple process I hope you enjoy your new tones, if you have any questions leave them in the comment box. Special thanks to Jay_sloefast for showing me how to do this

Safe Sex

Ok this is a really random post but deal with it. So I listen to wayne alot and some of his lyrics i just pass off as jibberish. Well today im listening to Pandora and I hear Lollipop(Remix), and at the end is the following line:

"Safe sex is great sex, better wear that latex cause you dont want that late text, that "I think im late" text Heh-Heh, so wrap it up".

So as im listening to it im cracking up and my coworkers are giving me wierd looks. If ur not listening carefully it just sounds like he is saying Latex over and over, but upon further review it is a very clever line. Dont underestimate Wayne.
That is all....