Addressed to the politicians who want the votes of young drinkers and so far are providing them with spaces to do so, they should know that:
Repeated alcohol consumption during adolescence may affect brain function in future generations, which could put their offspring at risk of diseases such as depression, anxiety and metabolic disorders. The amygdala appears to play a role in excessive alcohol consumption, being damaged by repeated episodes of intoxication and withdrawal. Alcoholism is associated with attenuated activation in brain networks responsible for emotional processing, including the amygdala. Protein kinase C-epsilon in the amygdala appears to be critical for the development of excessive ethanol intake disorders.
"Excessive teenage drinking is not only dangerous for the brain development of adolescents, but it can also affect the brains of their future children," he says. Toni R. Pak, associate professor at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology of the Loyola University Chicago School of Medicine in the United States.
In a study conducted by this department, they found "159 gene changes in the offspring of mothers who drank, 93 gene changes in the offspring of fathers who binge drank and 244 gene changes in the offspring of mothers and fathers both exposed to heavy drinking".
The research is the first to show a molecular pathway as to why heavy alcohol consumption by either parent can cause changes in the neurological health of later generationsaccording to the authors. Nicotine has the effect of acetylcholine. Both go to neuronal receptors, but once the drug dose is increased, these receptors lose receptor efficiency and more and more of the drug is needed. The normal level in the brain no longer has an effect and the emptiness, the uneasiness, the discomfort of the lack of the natural substance, acetylcholine, appears.
Nicotine also affects outside the brain, increases the heart rate, raises blood pressure, ages the skin due to its vasoconstrictor effect which decreases its irrigation and therefore its nutrition; in short, it puts the subject in a fighting attitude. That is why shy people need it, it puts them in a level of stress necessary to decide, a pleasure in itself for those who have no mental means at that moment to get out of a situation.
Neurobiological processes
It's not enough to just look at your phone, you have to be hooked for three hours. And, as with all drugs, including hard and soft drugs, other tasks are left behind that the brain will no longer interpret as a reward: studying, face-to-face conversation, doing homework, that's no longer a reward. Addictive behaviours constitute a mental disorder.as scientific research and neuroscience have shown. There are neurobiological and environmental processes involved in behavioural addictions both to substances (tobacco, cocaine, cannabis, alcohol...) and without them (gambling, sex, food...) and many thousands in marketing to lead children from the age of twelve to gambling addiction.
The person who turns to addictions of any kind and becomes addicted is because he or she lacks mental or emotional resources, We are not able to cope with the pressures of our environment, or we do not know how to cope with the pressures of our environment, and we probably do not have enough of the menu that life offers us to enjoy. This manifests itself when life requires us to use all our resources. The addict lacks resources and defends himself by reducing his emotionality.
"The reason why addiction is questioned as a mental disorder is perhaps due, among other reasons, to a lack of understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these behaviours, which neuroscience research is beginning to clarify," he explains. Nora Vokow, director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse. In her opinion, "the concept of addiction as a disorder of the mind challenges deeply held public values of self-determination and personal responsibility that portray drug use by these addicted individuals as a voluntary and hedonistic act, which is unrealistic".
It is not true that people smoke or take drugs for personal freedom because the brain is trapped and the mechanisms of pleasure and learning are broken down. But drugs are also ideologies, and dangerous ones at that, as Cervantes showed. "Don Quixote saw reality through books. Some of the catastrophes and crimes of wars and revolutions originate in a few ideology addicts who, like Don Quixote, read books, although not chivalry, but everything they see is referenced to their ideology.
José Antonio Rodríguez Piedrabuena
Specialist in Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis