This calls for a celebratory beer: a new study from the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at the University of Texas shows that drinking alcohol primes certain areas of our brain to learn and remember better.
It comes down to a little thing called dopamine:
“People commonly think of dopamine as a happy transmitter, or a pleasure transmitter, but more accurately it’s a learning transmitter,” says neurobiologist Hitoshi Morikawa. “It strengthens those synapses that are active when dopamine is released.”
Suddenly that Thursday night at Tim’s before an exam doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.
Read More from Science Daily: Can Alcohol Help the Brain Remember? Repeated Ethanol Exposure Enhances Synaptic Plasticity in Key Brain Area, Study Finds