Early Drinking Onset in Youth and Cognition in Young Adulthood

Alcohol is neurotoxic, and cognitive development may continue until age 30, but many people begin drinking in adolescence. Among adolescents or young adults not meeting criteria for an alcohol use disorder, the quantity of recent alcohol use predicts subtle changes in neuropsychological functioning. To learn how age of alcohol use onset might affect neuropsychological functioning, researchers conducted a longitudinal study on the effects of age at first alcohol use and at onset of weekly drinking on later performance on multiple neuropsychological tests in 295 adolescents without baseline histories of drinking (mean age, 14).

At follow-up (6.8 years after enrollment; mean age, 21), 215 participants had begun drinking (age range, 10–23); 127 …