Binge drinking can bring a rise in the level of risk of damages to the brain. Study researchers have studied a link between binge drinking and memory loss in young rats and adult ones.

In the research, they especially focused on the hippocampus and found that excessive drinking could make brain cells to be more vulnerable to injury from trauma or disease in adult life. Study's lead researcher Mary-Louise Risher, of the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, said that once people get 18 years old they think that they are adults.

However, it is important to know that brain continues to develop and refine into the mid-20s. "It's important for young people to know that when they drink heavily during this period of development, there could be changes occurring that have a lasting impact on memory and other cognitive functions", stated Risher.

Researchers gave alcohol to rodents and studied their brains when they were in adolescent phase. Alcohol was given to a level in which impairment in a human could take place, but not up to the blackout level.

Soon, the team stopped providing the rats alcohol and let them grow into adulthood. Researchers then passed an electrical pulse to rodents' hippocampus portion and measured how the brain's synapses worked to attempt a new task.

As per the findings, the researchers came to know too much alcohol exposure could change the way the hippocampus functioned. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking that leads a person's blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 grams per deciliter or above. It generally happens when men consume five or more drinks and women have four or more drinks in a time span of around two hours.