Beer Goggles and Strobing Lights: What Your Brain Thinks About Alcohol

Neuroscientists have discovered -from the brain's perspective- what social drinkers already know: alcohol feels good, is relaxing, and you know how tipsy you are.

Imaging activity in the brain while administering alcohol intravenously, researchers from Brown University and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, investigated how alcohol relates to emotion. Subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while receiving alcohol or saline. During the procedure, they were shown pictures of neutral or threatening faces -a technique known to elicit a fear response.

As expected, subjects given saline showed activity in the brain corresponding to regions relating to fear (including the amygdala) when viewing the threatening photos. The alcohol recipients, however, did not display this response. And, under the neutral image condition, they showed increased activity in areas of the brain having to do with pleasure and reward (ventral striatum).

A striking proportion of the reward regions showed activity in the alcohol condition. That the brain is saying “cheers, this drink feels good,” has implications to the study of alcohol in relation to addiction and alcoholism treatment.

The fact that alcohol abolished the fear response, readily triggered in control subjects, is intriguing. The authors speculate that because alcohol also affected the visual and limbic brain areas, an inebriated individual might see or interpret faces differently than their sober counterparts do. Perhaps this could explain the beer goggle phenomenon. Additionally, the data relating to the amygdala itself suggests it may play a role in misconstruing the presented expressions resulting in difficulty discerning friend from foe.

An unexpected finding relates to how individuals perceive the extent of their inebriation. Perception of one's intoxication did not reflect blood alcohol levels. However, people could seemingly sense how active their ventral striatum was. The more activity in the reward center -swayed by circumstance- the more a subject reported drunkenness. So, while you might not be able to tell what your blood alcohol level is, you can tell how tipsy you are. Perhaps this could explain why the strobing lights of a night club are part of the party while the flashing lights of a patrol car are sobering.

The above image, taken from Gilman et al. (Fig. 1A), shows activity in the ventral striatum in the alcohol condition.


Gilman, J.M., Ramchandani, V.A., Davis, M.B., Bjork, J.M., Hommer, D.W. (2008). Why We Like to Drink: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of the Rewarding and Anxiolytic Effects of Alcohol. Journal of Neuroscience, 28(18), 4583-4591. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0086-08.2008