Neuroscience Blog

Through its changes to neural circuitry, regular alcohol consumption increases stress and diminishes feelings of wellbeing long after inebriation.

(Dr. Andrew Huberman explains how alcohol disrupts neural and hormonal circuitry | YouTube)

Highlights

• Even drinking moderately causes long-term changes to brain circuits.
• Alcohol’s influence on these brain circuits increases the release of the stress hormone cortisol so that its elevated levels persist long after drinking, triggering anxiety.

Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and podcaster from Stanford University who warns against regular alcohol consumption in a YouTube segment. He presents an interesting finding where alcohol consumption, even in moderation, alters a neural circuit that connects the brain to hormone regulation — the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In doing so, alcohol increases circulating levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, long after drinking. As a result, those who drink feel more stress and anxiety when they’re not drinking, triggering a desire to consume more alcohol and precipitating alcohol’s addictive properties.

Alcohol-Induced Changes to Neural Circuitry Increase Stress that Persists Long After Inebriation

“If people are ingesting alcohol chronically, even if it’s not every night, there are well-recognized changes in neural circuits, there are well-recognized changes in neurochemistry within the brain, and there are well-recognized changes in the brain-to-body stress system … “ says Huberman.

When people drink, there is a well-known shutting down of neural circuits that control judgment and memory. What many don’t know about are changes to neural circuitry connecting the brain to hormonal regulation. Along these lines, alcohol changes the connections between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands — the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.

The hypothalamus sits just above the roof of your mouth and regulates primitive functions like rage and sex drive. Alcohol disrupts the hypothalamus’s connection to the pituitary gland, which lies in the brain just below the hypothalamus. This circumstance impairs the pituitary gland’s release of hormones into the bloodstream that communicate with the adrenal glands that sit right above the kidneys. The adrenal glands release hormones like adrenaline and cortisol — a molecule involved in long-term stress responses.

Elevated Cortisol Drives the Feeling of Needing to Drink More

With alcohol’s adverse effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, people who drink only a few drinks a night release more cortisol from the adrenal glands than those who don’t drink. These cortisol level elevations persist even when they’re not drinking. As a consequence, drinkers feel more anxiety throughout their daily lives.

For this reason, alcohol consumers have the conception that they need more alcohol to relieve the stress they feel from increased cortisol. Regular drinkers also experience a diminished mood and reduced feelings of wellbeing from changes in their neural circuitry, according to Huberman. As such, alcohol can precipitate an elevated desire to drink in an attempt to alleviate these side effects from drinking.

“Again, personal choice is personal choice,” says Huberman. “I’m not telling you what to do, but it’s very clear that those sorts of drinking patterns are changing neural circuitry, and they’re changing hormone circuitry, and I’d love to be able to tell you that they’re changing them for the better, but they simply are not. They’re actually changing them for the worse, and worse is defined as making people less resilient to stress, higher levels of baseline stress, and lower mood overall.”

Story Source

How Alcohol Actually Increases Stress Levels, Rather Than Relaxing You | Dr. Andrew Huberman. (2023).