The campus social scene sees many students ready to “party hearty” with alcohol, from keggers and cocktails to Jell-O shots and BORGS ("blackout rage gallons"). Taken to extremes, problem drinking has been an ongoing concern as severe intoxication can lead to accidents and injuries, health problems, or at the very least dehydration, nausea and headaches the morning after.
Now there’s new University of Oregon research that says besides harsh hangovers, heavy drinking impairs one’s cognitive functions the day after a heavy binge, too.
To become part of the research, participating students had to have a history of heavy drinking at least twice in a month and at least one instance of blackout drinking in a year. This was defined as not remembering what they did during that drinking episode. Heavy drinking was defined as consuming at least four drinks in a sitting for women and five for men.
Ashley Linden-Carmichael is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services in the UO College of Education. She said for this research, more than 300 college students were observed over a three-week period. They were tracked by their levels of drinking - including some who “blacked out” – followed by testing out their respective day-after brain functions such as decision making, attention and memory.
“So the next day we asked them some questions about their perspective memory lapses, like, ‘Did you forget something that you had to do like to take medicine?’” explained Linden-Carmichael. “Or retrospective memory lapses, which is like if you forget someone's name or just also having a tough time making decisions, as well.”
One of the lead authors of the study, Linden-Carmichael summed up the findings with the heavier drinkers:
“They had a harder time with making decisions. They had poorer memory, overall poor cognitive functioning. And we saw that this was especially true on days where they blacked out after alcohol use as well.”
Linden-Carmichael says many students think everything’s back to normal once they sober up. But these cognitive mishaps can affect their studies, work and relationships, so these findings might help them make better decisions about substance use.
“We had seen from someone else's study — they actually brought participants in the lab and they were looking at changes in the brain after a night of heavy drinking,” added Linden-Carmichael. “And they saw that there were actual structural changes in the brain after a 21st birthday event, which is typically a heavy drinking occasion.” She said this structural change caused her and other researchers to ask if young adults are noticing these effects.
One more aspect she’d like to explore is the long-term effects of repeated heavy drinking on a person over time.
“How does alcohol use behavior that occurred in young adulthood relate to later cognitive functioning in midlife and in later life?” asked Linden-Carmichael. “As well to inform prevention and intervention in young adulthood?”
The University of Oregon’s press release said that young adults age 18-25 reported the highest rates of heavy alcohol use among all age groups, while just over 5 million young adults in the U.S met the criteria for alcohol-use disorder in 2023, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And roughly half of young adults who drink reported at least one instance when they drank to the point of blacking out.
“When someone is blacking out, they’re continuing to navigate the world, but they’re not processing information or making and storing memories,” Linden-Carmichael said. “Which can lead to making decisions they normally wouldn’t, increasing the risk for physical injury and sexual assault.”
According to the UO release, “high-intensity drinking, more than eight drinks in a sitting for women, or 10 for men, was associated with twice the likelihood of reporting cognitive lapses the next day.” And drinking to the point of blackout was linked to a 40% higher likelihood of cognitive lapses the following day.
Linden-Carmichael next hopes to examine the role of sleep as a protective factor for young adults who drink heavily or blackout and to explore the cognitive effects after consecutive days of heavy drinking or blacking out. She also is conducting research on the effects on young adults who use alcohol and cannabis together.
Linden-Carmichael co-authored the study with Jacqueline Mogle of RTI Health Solutions in North Carolina. Other researchers included Jennifer Shipley with the Prevention Science Institute, and Sara Miller and Stephen Wilson of Penn State University.
Their findings are in the journal, Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research.
Copyright 2026, KLCC.
