Observational studyAddiction (Abingdon, England)2021
Alcohol use and cognitive functioning in young adults: improving causal inference.
Observational study in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effects of Alcohol on EEG Activity: A Systematic Review Focused on Sex-Related Differences in Youth.Current neuropharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Alcohol consumption and its association with cancer, cardiovascular, liver and brain diseases: a systematic review of Mendelian randomization studies.Frontiers in epidemiology · 2024Pooled it
- Using Mendelian randomization analysis to better understand the relationship between mental health and substance use: a systematic review.Psychological medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Resilience in motion: emerging perspectives on stress, substance use and youth.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Psychosocial factors associated with alcohol use in lower socioeconomic position populations: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The Effect of Acylcarnitines on Cognitive Function: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Whole exome sequencing analysis identifies genes for alcohol consumption.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Associations between Adolescent Alcohol Use and Neurocognitive Functioning in Young Adulthood.Applied developmental science · 2024Article
- Cognitive functioning in anxiety and depression: results from the ALSPAC cohort.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Association between inflammation and cognition: Triangulation of evidence using a population-based cohort and Mendelian randomization analyses.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2023Article
- Reaction Time and Visual Memory in Connection to Alcohol Use in Persons with Bipolar Disorder.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Commentary on Mahedy et al. : Cognitive impairments and heavy drinking - a hallmark of vulnerable groups.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsThere have been few longitudinal studies of association between alcohol use and cognitive functioning in young people. We aimed to examine whether alcohol use is a causal risk factor for deficient cognitive functioning in young adults.
designLinear regression was used to examine the relationship between longitudinal latent class patterns of binge drinking and subsequent cognitive functioning. Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) tested evidence for the causal relationship between alcohol use and cognitive functioning.
settingSouth West England.
participantsThe observational study included 3155 adolescents and their parents (fully adjusted models) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Genetic instruments for alcohol use were based on almost 1 000 000 individuals from the genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and Sequencing Consortium of Alcohol and Nicotine use (GSCAN). Genome-wide association studies for cognitive outcomes were based on 2500 individuals from ALSPAC. MEASUREMENTS: Binge drinking was assessed at approximately 16, 17, 18, 21 and 23 years. Cognitive functioning comprised working memory, response inhibition and emotion recognition assessed at 24 years of age. Ninety-nine independent genome-wide significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with 'number of drinks per week' were used as the genetic instrument for alcohol consumption. Potential confounders were included in the observational analyses.
findingsFour binge drinking classes were identified: 'low-risk' (41.3%), 'early-onset monthly' (19.1%), 'adult frequent' (22.5%) and 'early-onset frequent' (17.0%). The association between early-onset frequent binge drinking and cognitive functioning: working memory (b = -0.42, 95% confidence interval (CI) = -1.24 to 0.41), response inhibition (b = 31.9, 95% CI = -25.3 to 89.2), and emotion recognition (b = 0.02, 95% CI = -0.07 to 0.10) in comparison to low-risk drinkers were inconclusive as to whether a difference was present. Two-sample MR analyses similarly provided little evidence that alcohol use is associated with deficits in working memory using the inverse variance weight (b = 0.29, 95% CI = -0.42 to 0.99), response inhibition (b = -0.32, 95% CI = -1.04 to 0.39) and emotion recognition (b = 0.03, 95% CI = -0.55 to 0.61).
conclusionsBinge drinking in adolescence and early adulthood may not be causally related to deficiencies in working memory, response inhibition or emotion recognition in youths.
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Registered trials
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