Decrements in verbal encoding abilities have also been observed in binge drinking adolescents during fMRI tasks involving recall of learned word pairs 55. Compared to nondrinkers, bingers showed less response in right superior frontal and bilateral posterior parietal cortices, with more response in occipital cortex, during the verbal encoding task. This suggests less utilization of working memory systems during encoding for bingers compared to nondrinkers on tasks of encoding. In addition, drinkers encoded marginally fewer words than nondrinkers (p=.07), and had no differential activation to novel stimuli. Together, these results suggest slightly poorer initial verbal learning, disadvantaged verbal processing, and decelerated learning for adolescents who engage in binge drinking compared to abstinent adolescents.
