Night of 18 June 2018: Science behind the drama

Beer, Vodka, Wine..... Wow... It’s a party time....!!!

         

 How a simple fermented liquid could change our mood? How it affects our brain and makes us out of control, do you know??

    A very mischievous compound is responsible for making a person mad known as ALCOHOL. Alcohol is the active ingredient in beer, wine, hard liquor like rum, whiskey etc. Alcohol (%vol) varies in different alcoholic beverages like 4-5% in a beer, 12% in wine and 40% in a distilled spirit. There are different types of alcohol; most common is ETHANOL/ETHYL ALCOHOL.  A simple process takes place for the formation of alcohol called FERMENTATION; it produces alcohol by converting sugar from different sources into carbon dioxide (bubbles) and alcohol in the presence of yeast. Different sugar from different sources gives different alcoholic beverages. For example, Sugar from grapes gives red/white wine, Sugar from barley/rye/wheat gives beer. Our stories main hero VODKA prepared from potato.

So, how this alcohol make us mad?

 Our brain work is all based on NEUROTRANSMITTERS, a chemical messenger which transmit a signal from one neuron (brain cells) to another target neuron. There are different types of neurotransmitters like GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), Dopamine, Glutamate, serotonin, endorphin.  

Neurotransmitters are either excitatory or inhibitory in nature. Excitatory neurotransmitters stimulate brain electrical activity e.g. glutamate, which is the most abundant amino acid in the diet. Excessive glutamate is the main reason for brain damage after a stroke. Inhibitory neurotransmitter calm the brain e.g. GABA calms your brain by reducing the activity of neuron and Dopamine is considered as neuromodulators. Dopamine affects your emotions, movement and your sensation of pleasure and pain.

                             

Alcohol is a CNS (Central Nervous System) depressant i.e. causing slurred speech, poor limb coordination that prevents us from being able to walk properly. It causes sedation and drowsiness. Alcohol affects the brain by changing the level of neurotransmitters. Alcohol Increases GABA and decreases Glutamate in the brain. Amount of dopamine also increased with alcohol consumption giving pleasurable effect. So the main culprit in my story is Dopamine also called the reward center. Alcohol’s activity on dopamine site gives the pleasurable feeling that was motivating my friends to drink. My friends drank alcohol with an empty stomach, and a recent study has shown that people who drank alcohol after a meal that includes protein, carbohydrate and fat absorbed alcohol nearly three times more slowly than when they are the empty stomach. In my story, only the girls are more affected than boys because the female has high BAC (blood alcohol content) than male after consuming the same amount of alcohol and therefore more vulnerable to alcohol effect. At the end of the story, alcohol caused blackouts and short-term memory lapses in which my friends forget what occurred over entire stretches of time. Alcohol interacts with multiple systems in the brain – sometimes stimulating and other times inhibiting neurotransmission. So if you are trying alcohol for the first time and feeling pleasure means your dopamine is ON...!!! ALL THE BEST FOR ALCOHOL PARTY !!!