Alcohol shrinks women's brains more than men's

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/10/14/healthmag.alcohol.brain.shrinkage/index.html

by ksvs • 18 years ago

2 3 18 years ago

A friend of mine once argued that alcohol boosted brain performance; it went something like this. Alcohol kills brain cells. Darwin's theory implies that the weakest and slowest to adapt will be the first to die out. Thus: Drinking alcohol kills weaker brain cells and boosts brain performance.

Does that mean that women are smarter than men because more of their braincells get killed (or shrunk) according to this research?

Allocator2008• 18 years ago

Not sure that works. Remember, a neuron is a relatively simple mechanism. It is just that a bunch of them together make one "smart" or whatever. So alcohol's wanton destruction of neurons is only destructive I would think, because there are not "stronger" vs. "weaker" neurons. They are all pretty much the same, simple mechanisms. The more the better, and so killing some of them off just can't be good, I don't think. I am not a doctor but I do know neurons are fairly simple. They fire if a "threshold" of electric potential is exceeded, else they don't. They are simple, stupid, binary mechanisms. But put lots of them together and you eventually get Einstein. So killing neurons can only be bad I think.

aaronjerling2• 18 years ago

Hmm. It would be interesting to have a way to boost neurons - a neuron rich drink every day . . Something for the bio-scientists I think.

Alcohol shrinks women's brains more than men's

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