Drinking to remember, not to forget

Do not tell any university student you know, because going out for drinks the night before an exam may become rather more popular, if they believe this result:

Drinking alcohol improves memory for information learned before the drinking episode began, new research suggests.

In the University of Exeter study, 88 social drinkers were given a word-learning task. Participants were then split in two groups at random and told either to drink as much as they liked (the average was four units) or not to drink at all.

The next day, they all did the same task again -- and those who had drunk alcohol remembered more of what they had learned.

The researchers are keen to stress that this limited positive effect should be considered alongside the well-established negative effects of excessive alcohol on memory and mental and physical health.

"Our research not only showed that those who drank alcohol did better when repeating the word-learning task, but that this effect was stronger among those who drank more," said Professor Celia Morgan, of the University of Exeter.

"The causes of this effect are not fully understood, but the leading explanation is that alcohol blocks the learning of new information and therefore the brain has more resources available to lay down other recently learned information into long-term memory.