AU youth engaged more task-irrelevant regions (prefrontal and temporal), rather than the more task-relevant regions observed for non-AU youth (middle frontal and cerebellar). In addition, greater drinks consumed and greater withdrawal/hangover symptoms were associated with greater BOLD response, while lifetime alcohol consumption was associated with less BOLD response. The variation of regions engaged in the SWM task suggested to the authors that alcohol consumption during this developmental period might stimulate neuronal reorganization (e.g., compensatory mechanisms) to bring unexpected (task-irrelevant) regions in order to achieve comparable performance to non-AU youth.
