College students given a memory task while intoxicated showed that those students with a previous history of binge drinking performed more poorly than other students (Weissenborn & Duka, 2003). Rats exposed to chronic intermittent ethanol as adolescents showed impaired memory when re-exposed to acute alcohol, whereas rats similarly exposed as adults did not (White, Ghia, Levin, & Swartzwelder, 2000). The hippocampus plays an essential role in episodic memory formation; the ventral hippocampus (vHip) communicates with multiple nuclei of the mesocorticolimbic and extended amygdala systems in this process (Alberini, 2013; Martinez J, 1998). Optogenetic techniques have demonstrated that the hippocampus, particularly the ventral portion of the dentate gyrus, is also involved in anxiety-like behavior (Kheirbek, Klemenhagen, Sahay, & Hen, 2012). Significant maturation of the brain occurs during adolescence, including neurogenesis, myelination, and selective pruning. In rodents, hippocampal neurogenesis is higher in adolescents than adults (He & Crews, 2007). Imaging studies have shown that adolescents with alcohol use disorders have smaller hippocampi (De Bellis et al., 2000; Nagel, Schweinsburg, Phan, & Tapert, 2005) and that the effect of alcohol on hippocampal volume
