The Neurological Cocktail: why do we drink?

Chloe Marschner

Why do we drink alcohol? We may think that we are reaching for our beverages totally out of our own choice, but the truth is perhaps more embedded in the neurology of our brains. Research has uncovered the maze of circuitry and receptors in our grey matter which influence our partiality for happy hour. What follows is a deep dive into the neurobiology of just some of the various chemicals responsible, revealing an intoxicating neurological cocktail of ethanol and dopamine. We also take a look at how the alcohol-soaked suppression of parts of our brain can actually increase our creativity, which might give us a deeper clue into why we hit the bottle.

When considering why we drink, our first thought might be that it’s because it tastes pretty good. For those with a sweet tooth, this may very much be the case. It’s true that many drinks are laced with sugar – some fruit-based cocktails are just tooth-rottingly good. But it’s not just the usual suspect of sugar that activates the parts of our brain which crave sweetness. A number of studies[1] have found that a liking for sucrose (sugar) is closely related to the liking for alcohol. And a closer investigation of this revealed that the ethanol in alcohol activates those same receptors in the brain that sucrose does. And of course, not all drinks are sweet; some in fact are exceedingly bitter. But it certainly does follow that ethanol and sucrose would share receptors, given that ethanol is derived from sugar itself, during the process of fermentation of fruits. This research is supported by findings that alcoholism in the family is often correlated with having a larger sweet tooth. Although this seems to suggest some kind of genetic vulnerability to alcoholism if you like a little something sweet after dinner, we should note that many of these conclusions were based off rat studies. So unless you’re a rat, it would be worth taking these results with a pinch of salt. With the shared receptors of ethanol and sucrose pinging off in your brain, this acts to increase our desire to drink and is helped along by a very important neurochemical: dopamine.

The neurotransmitter that everyone talks about… Dopamine is the driving force behind so many of our behaviours, but principally those involving seeking, rewards and pleasure. It may not be a surprise that the ethanol in alcohol excites dopamine neurons[2] in the brain. It feels good to have a drink! And you’re motivated to seek out another drink, because it feels so good! This occurs through an indirect mechanism in the area of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which is the primary hub of dopamine neurons. This makes it the epicentre of the sensation of reward. That reward could feel like the sensation of that first sip of a cool cider on a balmy day, or the cold bite of a liquor shot in the tumult of a club. And this excitation of dopamine strengthens those properties of ethanol which make it so appealing. So it’s not just the increased social ease or the self-medicative effects of alcohol that make you want a drink, but also the urge to seek and repeat the neurological pleasurable effects of ethanol. This dopamine loop is deeply wired into the circuitry of our brains, and massively affects our decisions around drinking.

Looking at perhaps a more recognisable neurological reason why we want to drink, we might consider the actual experience of being drunk. One of the principle ways in which alcohol affects the brain is through inhibiting the prefrontal cortex (PFC). This area of the brain is responsible for your major cognitive controls  – these include your decision-making, assessment of risk, and interestingly, your working memory. Working memory is the mental process of keeping things in your mind at the same time as doing another complicated task. A great example of this is keeping someone’s address in mind whilst they tell you directions on how to reach it. Pretty difficult at the best of times, and alcohol certainly makes this process even trickier. One of the culprits is γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which drinking alcohol increases the release of[3]. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which means it reduces the likelihood that your neurons will fire. This has been widely linked to the sedative experience of alcohol consumption. With GABA reducing neuronal firing in areas of your brain linked to working memory[4], your ability to retain and hold information in this way is suppressed.

But this is no surprise to anyone who has been drunk before. Where it gets interesting is that this suppression of working memory actually boosts your creativity. By reducing this part of your brain associated with analytical tasks and attention to detail, your brain is actually freed up to think about new information more originally and flexibly. So alcohol can actually benefit[5] how creative you are. People knew these kinds of psychoactive substances were beneficial deep back in the alcoves of history. One example is the famous aristocratic symposiums of the Ancient Greeks, where wine was mixed with water or dosed strictly to prevent all-out drunkenness and oil the wheels of intellectual discussion[6], amongst other activities. This alcoholic restraint is mimicked in studies which investigate the phenomenon of alcohol-fuelled creativity, as they rely heavily on exact dosages of alcohol. One study titled ‘Uncorking the Muse’[7], brought people in a lab up to a blood alcohol level (BAC) of .075 using precisely administered vodka cranberries – bearing in mind that a BAC of 0.08 is considered legally intoxicated whilst driving. They found that this precise level of drunkenness boosted people’s creativity on a number of lateral-thinking tasks. Though it can’t have been a riot getting tipsy under the watchful eye of psychology researchers, this is a great support for the behaviours of the Ancient Greeks and many others throughout history. However, it is evident that the window for creativity is actually rather small and elusive, especially when the option of one drink more is on the table. Just a slightly higher blood alcohol level is enough to tip you over into incoherence. But this creative window is one part of being drunk that might inspire that first desire for a drink – this is also likely the basis for the maxim: “write drunk, edit sober.”

Taking this idea of creativity spurring us to have a drink, one man has come up with a rather novel theory about society. Sinologist and philosopher Edward Slingerland suggests that drinking alcohol and the resulting creativity that ensues may have been the spark that initially led us to form larger groups from our hunter-gatherer origins. Though it might seem rather absurd to pin the formation of our civilisations on alcohol, he draws on a number of fields including neuropsychology to show that the inhibition of the prefrontal cortex is beneficial in a moderate amount to collective creativity[8]. This kind of creativity may have facilitated the sort of crucial decisions involved in innovation and survival. He even suggests that the earliest farmers may have been motivated by the desire to produce beer, rather than bread. It’s certainly a bold claim to pin sedentary human civilisation upon the pint. Slingerland also compares alcohol-spurred creativity to the enhanced creativity of young children, which many psychologists believe is due to their underdeveloped prefrontal cortex[9]. The same area in your brain that alcohol firsts acts to suppress. One is reminded of the famous quote by Picasso: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” In a nice pithy remark, he refers to the difficulty of retaining that pure, uninhibited creativity of a child once you reach adulthood, and it might seem as though alcohol is a medium to return to that stage. It's true that Slingerland’s take on intoxication, creativity and civilisation is bold and exciting, though he is not without his critics. But it is certainly an very interesting argument for why we drink, and why we have drunk.

So the neurological cocktail of ethanol, sucrose, dopamine and GABA shake you up into a frenzy for alcohol? Certainly in many ways, though, of course, many other processes and chemicals are involved. These sorts of things are never simple when our brains are concerned. Although there are a number of noticeable reasons for why we want to drink – the social connectedness, the bolstered creativity and the self-medicative effects – we are also able to peel the layers back to uncover the psychological mechanisms at play. Some of which may even have driven the very formation of the civilisations we live in today.

References

[1] Lemon, C.H. (2015) Perceptual and Neural Responses to Sweet Taste in Humans and Rodents. Chemosensory Perception. 8,2. 46–52. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12078-015-9177-8

[2] Xiao, C. et al. (2007) Effects of Ethanol on Midbrain Neurons: Role of Opioid Receptors. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 31, 7. 1106-1113. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-0277.2007.00405.x

[3] Harrison’s Self-Assessment and Board Review. (2018) The effect of alcohol on neurotransmitters in the brain. AccessMedicine Channel. Available at:  https://www.accessmedicinenetwork.com/posts/34085-the-effect-of-alcohol-on-neurotransmitters-in-the-brain

[4] Scott Saults, J., Cowan, N., et al. (2007) Differential Effects of Alcohol on Working Memory: Distinguishing Multiple Processes. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. 15,6. 576-587. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658822/

[5] Beilock, S. (2012) Alcohol Benefits the Creative Process. Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/choke/201204/alcohol-benefits-the-creative-process

[6] Akmenkalns, J, Sneed, D. (2018) The symposium in ancient Greek society. Department of Classics, University of Colorado Boulder. Available at: https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2018/06/18/symposium-ancient-greek-society

[7] Jarosz, A.F., et al. (2012) Uncorking the muse: Alcohol intoxication facilitates creative problem solving. Consciousness and Cognition. 21,1. 487-493. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810012000037?via%3Dihub

[8] Venkatraman, V. (2021) Drunk review: Could alcohol-induced creativity be key to civilisation? New Scientist. Available at: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25033372-300-drunk-review-could-alcohol-induced-creativity-be-key-to-civilisation/

[9] Gopnik, A., et al. (2017). Changes in cognitive flexibility and hypothesis search across human life history from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. PNAS. 114,30. 7892-7899. Available at: http://alisongopnik.com/Papers_Alison/PNAS-2017-Gopnik-7892-9.pdf