Alcohol doesn8217;t make you behave badly: study

Prof Bruce Bartholow,who led the study,said: 8220;When we make mistakes,activity in a part of the brain responsible for monitoring behaviour increases. This sends an alarm signal to other parts of the brain indicating that something went wrong.

Our study shows that alcohol doesn8217;t reduce your awareness of mistakes 8212; it reduces how much you care about making those mistakes.

For their study,the researchers measured the brain activity of people aged between 21 and 35 as they completed a tricky computer task. One third of them were given alcoholic drinks,while the rest were given no alcohol or placebo drink.

In addition to monitoring their brain activity,the researchers also measured changes in participants8217; mood,their accuracy in the computer task and their perceived accuracy.

The findings showed the brain8217;s 8216;alarm signal8217; in response to errors was much less pronounced in those who had drunk alcohol. However,they were no less likely to realise when they had made a mistake 8212; they just didn8217;t care as much.

The tests also found that those who had consumed alcohol were much less likely to slow down and be more careful after they had made a mistake.