A team of researchers led by cognitive neuroscientists Robert Whelan have programmed a computer they claim can determine whether teenagers are likely to binge drink in the future.
Whelan said the results of a study conducted with the machine show it can predict future teen binge drinkers with "70 percent accuracy," according to The Verge. The research team collected brain function, personality, genetics, life history, and other data from hundreds of 14-year-olds in an effort to determine probable alcohol consumption behaviors by age 16.
The computer used the data to show how future mishandling of alcohol can be influenced by more than 40 different variables. Smoking, for example, was found to have a huge impact at 14, while pubertal development was found to have less of an impact.
"It's a form of supervised learning," Whelan said. "You tell the computer what the two groups are - either binge drinker or not - and it has to learn what features best distinguish them."
Approximately two thousand 14-year-olds from England, France, Ireland and Germany participated in IMAGEN, an ongoing study focusing on adolescent development, RTE News reported. The computer looked for patterns identifying kids who would become binge drinkers at 16, which is defined as having gotten drunk at least three different times. It was able to predict binge drinking for the demographic of 16-year-olds as well as it did for a different group of teenagers.
"Notably, it's not the case that there's a single one or two or three variables that are critical," said Dr. Hugh Garavan, co-leader of the study.
"The final model was very broad: it suggests that a wide mixture of reasons underlie teenage drinking."
The research team also found that bigger brains in 14-year-olds are linked to binge drinking in the future, RTE News reported. It is normal for brains in adolescents to get smaller since their brains go through significant changes as they develop, making bigger brains in adolescents a sign of immaturity.
"There's refining and sculpting of the brain, and most of the grey matter - the neurons and the connections between them - is getting smaller and the white matter (made from nerve fibres) is getting larger," Garavan said.
"Kids with more immature brains - those that are still larger - are more likely to drink."
Whelan said he believes researchers will be able to make stronger predictions about binge drinking with more genetic research, The Verge reported.
"We know from familial studies that alcohol misuses and substance misuse has a strong genetic component but we don't know much about the genes that drive that," he said. "So in however many years, we might be able to make a dent in that."
The study was published today in the journal Nature.
