Drinking Doesn't Make You Forget Your Troubles, According to Research!

Not only can't you drink your troubles away, but ethanol actually reinforces memories, according to Japanese scientists.

AFP reported Feb. 29 that University of Tokyo researcher Norio Matsuki and colleagues tried to condition rats to fear by giving them shocks followed by immediate injections of either ethanol or saline. They found that the rats that received the ethanol injections froze with fear longer, and that their fear reaction lasted for an average of two weeks.

"If we apply this study to humans, the memories they are trying to get rid of will remain strongly, even if they drink alcohol to try to forget an event they dislike and be in a merry mood for the moment," the authors wrote.

The study was published in the Feb. 20, 2008 issue of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Excerpted on 3/3/08  from Research News on Join Together.