ADOLESCENTS AND ALCOHOL.

The high levels of alcohol consumption characteristic of adolescence may be in part biologically based, given that elevated consumption levels are also evident during this developmental transition in other mammalian species as well. Studies conducted using a simple animal model of adolescence in the rat has shown adolescents to be more sensitive than adults to social facilitatory and rewarding effects of alcohol, but less sensitive to numerous alcohol effects that may serve as cues to limit intake. These age-specific alcohol sensitivities appear related to differential rates of development of neural systems underlying different alcohol effects as well as to an ontogenetic decline in rapid brain compensations to alcohol, termed "acute tolerance". In contrast, these adolescent-typical sensitivities to alcohol do not appear to be notably influenced by pubertally-related increases in gonadal hormones. Although data are sparse, there are hints that similar alcohol sensitivities may also be seen in human adolescents, with this developmentally decreased sensitivity to alcohol's intoxicating effects possibly exacerbated by genetic vulnerabilities also characterized by an insensitivity to alcohol intoxication, thereby perhaps permitting especially high levels of alcohol consumption among vulnerable youth.