Women’s use of alcohol: Neurobiobehavioral concomitants and consequences

• Published in: Frontiers in neuroendocrinology Vol. 70; p. 101079
• Main Authors: Nixon, Sara Jo, Garcia, Christian C., Lewis, Ben
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.07.2023
• Subjects: Age; Aged; Alcohol Drinking - psychology; Alcohol use; Alcoholism; Brain; Cognition; EEG; Emotion; Emotions; Ethanol; Female; Humans; Neuroimaging; Sex differences; Women; Women; Neuroimaging; EEG; Sex differences; Cognition; Emotion; Age; Alcohol use
• ISSN: 0091-3022; 1095-6808
• DOI: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2023.101079

•Women with alcohol use disorder (AUD) manifest compromise across neurobiobehavioral domains.•Women and men with alcohol use disorder (AUD) manifest different brain and behavioral domains of compromise.•Emotion processing may be more vulnerable than other processes to alcohol effects.•Chronicity of AUD is not a robust predictor of level of impairment.•Prevalence of continued drinking is disproportionately increasing in older women.•Moderate alcohol doses compromise working memory to a greater extent in women than men. In this narrative review, we draw from historical and contemporary literature to explore the impact of alcohol consumption on brain and behavior among women. We examine three domains: 1) the impact of alcohol use disorder (AUD) on neurobiobehavioral outcomes, 2) its impact on social cognition/emotion processing, and 3) alcohol’s acute effects in older women. There is compelling evidence of alcohol-related compromise in neuropsychological function, neural activation, and brain structure. Investigations of social cognition and alcohol effects in older women represent emerging areas of study. Initial analyses suggest that women with AUD show significant deficits in emotion processing, a finding also observed in older women who have consumed a moderate dose of alcohol. Critically, despite the long-recognized need for programmatic interrogation of alcohol’s effect in women, studies with sufficient numbers of women for meaningful analysis represent a small proportion of the literature, constraining interpretation and generalization.