individuals with alcohol use disorder have found smaller prefrontal grey and white matter volumes than age-matched controls. Lower prefrontal volumes correlated with a higher maximum number of drinks per drinking episode (De Bellis et al., 2005). Studies of social drinkers have found that the heaviest binge drinkers have more negative moods and performed worse on executive function tasks (Townshend and Duka, 2003; Weissenborn and Duka, 2003). Thus, adolescence impulsivity and poor executive function is a risk for initiation of drinking and enhanced learning of drug reward, possibly linked to socially rewarding experiences. This initial risk is enhanced during drinking induced cortical disruption and neurotoxicity further disrupting development of executive functions and possible leading to persistent loss of inhibitory control (Crews et al., 2007). Taken together these findings suggest that the unique developing limbic and cortical regions in adolescent brain may be a critical period of risks for disruption of frontal cortical development (Crews et al., 2007).
