Booze brains: Scans reveal alcohol doesn't make you behave badly, it just stops you caring about the embarrassment

Alcohol inhibits the brain's 'alarm signal', which usually sounds when we make a mistake

Unless you are teetotal, we've all had a morning after when we are forced to wonder why on earth we did that hugely embarrassing thing while drunk the previous night.

Whether it's as simple as an embarrassing text message sent, a drunken confession of love or something a little bit more bizarre, it's usually the sort of thing we wouldn't do while sober.



But a series of detailed brain scans has now revealed that alcohol doesn't cause us to behave badly, it just stops us from caring about embarrassing ourselves.

Why did I do that? U.S. research has shown that alcohol doesn't make us behave badly, it just inhibits the part of the brain that usually tells us to worry

Research from a team at the University of Missouri has shown that drunk people are still aware they're making a mistake, but the alcohol reduces brain signals telling us to worry.

Professor Bruce Bartholow, who led the study, said: 'When we make mistakes, activity in a part of the brain responsible for monitoring behaviour increases.

'This sends an alarm signal to other parts of the brain indicating that something went wrong.

'Our study shows that alcohol doesn't reduce your awareness of mistakes - it reduces how much you care about making those mistakes.'

During the study, Prof Bartholow's team of psychologists measured the brain activity of people aged between 21 and 35 as they completed a tricky computer task.

One third of them were given alcoholic drinks, while the rest were given no alcohol or a placebo beverage.

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In addition to monitoring their brain activity, the researchers also measured changes in participants' mood, their accuracy in the computer task and their perceived accuracy.

The findings showed the brain's 'alarm signal' in response to errors was much less pronounced in those who had drunk alcohol.

However, they were no less likely to realise when they had made a mistake - they just didn't care as much.

The tests also found that those who had consumed alcohol were much less likely to slow down and be more careful after they had made a mistake.

Prof Bartholow said: 'It is very common for people to respond more slowly following an error, as a way of trying to regain self-control.

'The alcohol group participants didn't do this.'

Prof Bartholow said the findings are important in understanding how alcohol contributes to the kinds of mistakes and social blunders we make when we're drunk.

He added: 'In certain circumstances reducing the brain's alarm signal could be seen as a good thing, because some people, like those with anxiety disorders, are hyper-sensitive to things going wrong.

'In some people, a small amount of alcohol can take the edge off those anxious feelings.'

Tests showed the brain's 'alarm signal' in response to errors was much less pronounced in those who had drunk alcohol



