The National Institute on Drug Abuse says forty-two percent of young adults in America have taken part in what is known as binge drinking. The experts define that as drinking four to five drinks within about two hours.

Tim McQueeny is a researcher in the Psychology Department at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He is studying how binge drinking affects the brains of young people. “The peak years of alcohol use are during the years when the brains are still developing, especially eighteen to twenty-five when substance use, such as binge drinking, is most prevalent.”

Assistant professor Krista Lisdahl Medina is researching the subject with him. “We looked at a very high resolution picture of the brain, where we can actually measure what’s called cortical thickness. So this is a measure of basically how thick their brain matter is.”

The researchers say binge drinking is linked to a loss of thickness in the pre-frontal cortex. They explain the many jobs of this part of the brain. “Regulating somebody’s emotions and controlling behaviors.” “Decision making.” “Controlling attention.” "The ability to inhibit responses.” “Considering consequences.” “Monitoring your environment.” “Acting appropriately.” “And, again, that very important ability to inhibit your impulses to do things.”

A team of American and Canadian scientists is also trying to measure the health effects of binge drinking by students. Dr. Michael Fleming is a researcher at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. He says they studied cases of alcohol-related injuries and blackouts.

“A blackout is a true period of amnesia. It’s a transient acute memory loss that can last from a couple of hours to longer, depending on how much you drank. So we wanted to know whether that put students -- in particular, college students -- at higher risk for injury.”

The research showed that as blackouts increased, so did the rate of physical injuries. Dr. Fleming says one in four students harmed themselves while drinking.

Many colleges and universities around the United States try to educate students about the dangers especially of binge drinking. Amanda Long works with campus alcohol programs at the University of Maryland. She says the programs there begin even before students arrive at the university.

“We start off by asking them to complete a national three-hour long educational program. It is really just a look at alcohol, how it affects students, how it can be a detriment to their progression as a student.”

At some schools around the country, students are required to use online resources like a program called eCHECKUP TO GO. San Diego State University in California administers that program. Doug Van Sickle is the project director.

“The program gives the student a personalized feedback about their use of alcohol and how it affects goals and aspirations that are important to them. Career and life, relationships, self-esteem, health and fitness, those kinds of things.

The program does not try to scare students with numbers about alcohol-related injuries or deaths. Instead, the students learn things like how much weight they can gain from alcohol and how much money a night of drinking can cost. Doug Van Sickle says this method really works with college students.