Gawker
Just why is everything so lovely and happy and just plain yay! when we get snoggled on super-magical fun juice? Science knows! "Jodi Gilman and her colleagues at the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Bethesda, Maryland, used MRI to observe the brain activity of 12 healthy "social drinkers" both when sober and after they had been given alcohol intravenously and their blood alcohol levels had reached nearly 0.8 grams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood - the legal limit for driving in the UK and the US. In both conditions they were shown pictures of either frightened or neutral faces."
"The researchers found that booze completely changed the way the brain reacted to the images. Without alcohol, the amygdala - which is involved in processing emotional reactions - lit up in response to the frightened faces, but with alcohol, it was less active, reacting equally to neutral and fearful faces. This may help explain why drunkenness makes people both more outgoing and more aggressive: it impairs the amygdala's ability to detect threats.
"The researchers also confirmed that alcohol activates reward circuits, such as the nucleus accumbens, just as other drugs of abuse do - resulting in pleasurable feelings."
Now you know. [NewScientist]
Comments
*hiccup*
Ooh, look at the big fish swimming at us. Here fishy, fishy, fis..
More fertile ground for research would be why ageing also results in reacting equally to neutral and fearful faces.
What sort of results are coming out of the Beer Goggles Institute? I need some closure on that.
@belltolls: cataracts
I am frightened of feces.
@BalknChain: Of course.
@belltolls: I would like 53 cents and a box of mothballs for my time spent researching. One of those beer bottle hang tags would be nice too. Maybe the Gone Sniffin' one.
but without booze, how could i better comprehend art? it would make film forum just a cramped, uncomfortable place where i get peanut oil popcorn.
also--whiskey goes brilliantly with blue slushies at the regal 14.
New study shows that one out of four people is 25% of the world's population...
@BalknChain: I believe you see Amy Gdala for that.
Weird. I once dated a woman named Amy Gdala. She was an emotional wreck.
@BalknChain: Or: "you're unemployed? On parole? Oh, sure I'll buy you a drink, poor baby with those scars on your wrist". So all those years it's been my liquor-supressed amygdala.Whew. I thought I was just a jerk.
@belltolls: Abby Noormel@SarahHeartburn: Wasn't Princess Amydala in one of those Return of the Something or Others?
I've found that having a third martini lessens my fear of having a fourth.
@BalknChain: I think he was a creepy guy in "The Matrix Reloaded."
@koala325: she told me about you. she said you were all up in her boundaries, crossing them and all
@belltolls:
Ack. Sorry for the Amy G. dupe.
No nucleus accumbens for me.
@nightwatchman_flamekeeper: hic yes
@if_i_only_had_a_heart:
Ha!
@koala325: Only Sal Minella gets upset about stuff like that.
@nightwatchman_flamekeeper: Oh right, and if you turned the Rubik's Cube a certain way hell opened up on Earth and Kelly LeBrock would turn your brother into a giant piece of poop with pins in his head. Good movie.
Still one of my favorite Simpsons lines ever is Homer after Prohibition in Springfield is lifted:
"To alcohol - the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
@koala325: You say Koala. I say Kahlúa!
I'm on my way out the door to field test this theory with some of my mates, all of whom drink and one of whom plays the pipes. This could get ugly. Ta ta.
@BalknChain: Until I realized what movie you were talking about, I really thought you were drunk yourself. Okay, I get it now.
@SarahHeartburn: If you know what movie (movie mashup) I'm talking about, you may be drunk!
On another weird movie thing, Prince Caspian (Capsaicin-sp?)? Really Narnia, he sounds like an aspercream brand. Just rub on a little Caspian and the wardrobe opens and swallows your pain.
@BalknChain:
midnight meat train!!!!!!!! (...which is entirely different from hellraiser, but i'm just spouting barker-ese here.)
@Word salad: You say Kahlua, I say 2 pints of red wine please, with a double whiskey and coke and half a bottle of Sambuca.After that , you're lucky if you can make out actual human forms let alone what fucking mood they're in.Study that Jodi and your triple a mates.Yeah!
@ExecutiveIntern: That's beautiful.Brought a wee tear to the eye there.
@mitchel_stevens: whoa, that's new to me
New goal in life: Buy Calraigh a drink. Or five.
This explains a lot of my "Whatsa madder huh?" moments while wasted.
@BalknChain:
go find the trailer. the short story is worse--in the gore sense. since barker imagines a serial killer on late night nyc subways.
@Juancho: I.Like.Youuuuuuu!
Annnnd..You!And you...and you and you...and especially you though.
@Calraigh: Mama mia!
They definitely thought all the faces were prettier after drinking.
@Word salad: Hell yeaaaah.I have to be in work in twooooooooo hours.I don't care if I'm surrounded by clinically depressed people with faces like slapped arses-everyone's a fucking movie star today!!!Yahooooooo!!
@mitchel_stevens: Ok, I'll look it up. I think the only ASS(ha!)ault that should happen on subways is an olfactory bludgeon about the nasal passages by an old man pooping in a cup.
@BalknChain:
i stepped in shit last wednesday on the goddamn F.
i would rather vinnie jones come slaughter me like cattle. also, because i'd see vinnie jones.
@mitchel_stevens: Oh God, I would have been so sick.
OMG I just totally ripped that Barney shot to be my MSN portrait
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