Drinking Does Not Cure Depression

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You will often see men getting drunk in depression over lost love. Their excuse is, alcohol helps forget. Well, he may be wrong, as proved by some scientists.Moderate alcohol consumption could make memories more painful, claim scientists.

New research claimed that people who have drunk alcohol before a traumatic event report more flashbacks than those who have had no alcohol.

This results gives a new insight to the fact as to why some individuals develop post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a traumatic event and others do not.

But the case is different is alcohol is drunk before a traumatic event. In the research, boffins also found that those who drank a large amount of alcohol before a traumatic event did not report an increase in the number of flashbacks.

Scientists believe that the findings can be answer how alcohol affects two types of memory: one that is egocentric, providing a visual ''snapshot'' of an event, and another that stores a mental representation of the context of the event, which is independent of the person's viewpoint.

The scientists suggest that contextual memory is reduced in those who experience high levels of stress and it maybe opposite in those who have had a couple of glasses of wine (around three units).

This allows egocentric memories to be involuntarily re-experienced - resulting in more flashbacks. In those that have drunk seven or more units of alcohol both types of memory are disrupted leading to fewer flashbacks and an overall reduction in memory for the event.