First, while other well-conducted reviews of adolescent AU and brain development have contained a much broader set of inclusion criteria (e.g., family history of alcohol use, genetic risk, other substance abuse; Jacobus & Tapert, 2013; Lisdahl et al., 2013a), we utilized a more stringent set of criteria to evaluate the impact of AU on the developing brain. Consistent with the larger body of work in this area (Jacobus & Tapert, 2013; Lisdahl et al., 2013a), even with this narrowly defined set of studies, the message is still clear: alcohol is a unique contributor to structural and functional alterations in the human adolescent brain.
