Traumatic Brain Injury During Childhood Could Lead to Later Alcohol Abuse

It may not be surprising to find out that alcohol use can increase your likelihood of receiving a traumatic brain injury. In fact, as many as half of all traumatic brain injury emergency room visits had alcohol use involved in some way. What is surprising, however, is new evidence suggests that the opposite may be true, as well.

Frontiers published research demonstrating a link between experiencing brain trauma as a child and later alcohol abuse as an adult. There is an increased risk for alcohol abuse for all traumatic brain injury survivors, but it is especially pronounced for children and adolescents.

The authors speculate that young people who experience such injuries might develop similar inflammation of the brain as lifelong heavy drinkers. This could explain their increased likelihood for later alcohol abuse.

Link: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00135/full