Groundbreaking Research Reveals Drinking Can Lead to Barfights

Where would we be without such findings?

DRINKING alcohol dulls the brain's ability to detect threats, US researchers said today in a study that helps explain why drunk people get into bar fights and drive their cars.

The researchers said the study was the first to show how alcohol affected the human brain as it responded to threats.

"You see this all the time. People get into confrontations when they are intoxicated that they probably wouldn't get into when they are sober," said Jodi Gilman of the National Institutes on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, whose study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Ms Gilman studied 12 people who were given intravenous infusions of alcohol and then monitored their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they looked at pictures of frightened and neutral faces.

And this is just from a study of moderate drinkers. They'll get to the heavy drinkers later.

People in the study were social drinkers, not heavy drinkers.

Ms Gilman said the research team planned to conduct the study in heavy drinkers next.

Expect that to unearth evidence that excessive drinking can lead to puking, slurred speech and unexpected memory loss.