Collegelife may harm learning potential

By Jason WilliamsManaging Editor

This is the brain on college: taxed at one end by the rigors ofacademia, while taxed at another end by the staple behaviors ofcollege life.

Adolescents travel the world to attend universities, and theirmotivations for doing so are as diverse as the students themselves.The shared trait, or desire, would seem to be a quest for knowledge.

They come to learn.

Amid their personal effects ? their iBooks, theirU-of-wherever sweatshirts bearing a regalia-clad mascot and theirblue-lense shades ? every student brings a three-pound lump ofwhite and gray matter. The brain is not something you pack ?you can’t leave it on the sofa by accident ? it goes where yougo, and experiences what you experience.

Like a fetus, it eats what you eat, and it drinks what you drink.

Yet, the brain gets little consideration, as if the mind weresomething intangible and detached from the physical ? as ifthe condition of the body does not reflect the state of mind.

Much is not understood about the brain and how something as uniqueas personality can exist in the gaps between neurons, or how geniusis created in the strength of a synapse ? but this lack ofintelligence about humanity’s seat of intelligence does not make themind mystical and invulnerable; broken down, the who you are and whatyou’re capable of is nothing more than a 100 billion cells ?specialized cells, but cells just the same, and your mind exists ineach and every one of them.

And the truth is, cells live and die, as the body lives and dies.

The brain is both indomitable and fragile, and it is susceptibleto the hallmarks of college life. This susceptibility can be seen ina weakening of learning potential in those who indulge with abandon? even unwittingly.

“Alcohol, marijuana, caffeine, diet, sleep deprivation, stress? all of those things are able to impair learning,” said LarrySquire, psychology professor-in-residence at the University ofCalifornia San Diego.

“Memoryis basically the end product of cognition. So anything aboutcognition that is weak ? inattention, poor motivation, notthinking clearly ? any of that will result in a less-perfectmemory of what one is processing.”

This is the brain on college.

Shooting neurons and dragging thebrain

The 2000 Core Survey, a poll of 55,000 undergraduate collegestudents from 132 U.S. colleges, found that 84.1 percent ofrespondents used alcohol within the year prior to the survey, and33.6 percent used marijuana.

“Alcohol and marijuana impair memory, impair motor function andimpair judgment,” said George Koob, professor and director of theScripps Research Institute Division of Psychopharmacology.

Of particular relevance for college students is the potentialaffects of these drugs on learning.

Internally, learning occurs as the result of changes in synapticstrength, which begin as chemical changes within neurons andultimately are expressed in neuronal growth.

But there is an external component to learning and laying downinformation in long-term memory: effort.

“There’sa lot that’s determined by effort ? by attention, byrehearsal, by how well it’s encoded,” Squire said. “The coding momentis the key time for learning.”

The cornerstone to impairment as the result of intoxication or theafter-effects of intoxication is attention, and the inability ofthose experiencing these effects to be attentive. Without attentionto what one is attempting to learn, the process of transferringinformation to long-term memory ? in effect, learning ?is being interrupted at a very early stage.

Learning is an active process, and the presence of, or withdrawalfrom, alcohol or marijuana prevents an individual from being activein that regard.

“They both work by clouding the ability of the mind to focussharply on events around you, and to contemplate any futurestrategies that you might want to undertake,” said Floyd Bloom,researcher in the Scripps Research Institute Department ofNeuropharmacology.

“They do what they do, they give their perceived beneficialeffects of relaxation and euphoria by changing the way in which thebrain senses its own internal information.”

However, one does not need to be under the influence of alcohol ormarijuana to be affected. Learning potential can be influenced by thecondition of the brain during the hangover or withdrawal stagefollowing the introduction of these chemicals into the body.

“The brain experiences during the withdrawal from a drug theopposite of the effects that were going on during the drug,” Bloomsaid.

When the chemical components of alcohol and marijuana interferewith the ability of the brain to generate chemical messages, thebrain attempts to compensate for the influences of the drugs byimplementing a chemical rhythm opposite to that established by theantagonists.

The withdrawal is “feeling” the brain’s response.

In the periods between use, if an individual is “dried out” and”totally stone sober,” learning potential is not likely to beaffected by having been intoxicated in the recent past; however,after-effects, such as a hangover, are an indication that the brainis still recovering from a serious episode and “your learningpotential under those conditions will definitely be impaired,” Bloomsaid.

It is this withdrawal phase that is most likely to interfere withstudent learning, in that the majority of students do not considerthemselves intoxicated if they are not feeling the “euphoria” of thedrug; however, being under the influence is more enduring.

During the withdrawal phase for alcohol, one’s ability toaccurately retrieve information and to consider alternatives may beaffected, said Susan Tapert, assistant professor of psychiatry at theUniversity of California San Diego.

“The presence of alcohol seems to cause a kind of chain reactionof events that make brain cell functioning less efficient,” Tapertsaid.

With marijuana, the withdrawal phase is marked by distractibility,a lack of focus and an inability to consolidate new information.

“I think the major problems that are associated with marijuana useand your ability to do well in school is that it does take away yourmotivation,” Tapert said.

“Some studies have shown that your ability to learn newinformation is disrupted, especially if you have used in the past 24hours; so, if there’s new information that you need to learn in classtomorrow, you probably don’t want to smoke pot tonight.”

Going into sleep debt

“Probably the most accurate thing to say about how the lack ofsleep affects learning is that it screws up your attention andconcentration,” said Sean Drummond, a professor in the Department ofPsychiatry at the University of California San Diego.

According to studies conducted by the National Sleep Foundation,33 percent of college-age Americans suffer from significant daytimesleepiness, and 55 percent reported waking up feeling unrefreshed.

In individuals who are sleep-deprived, effects can be seen inattention, vigilance, reaction time, memory and concentration, aswell as problems with relationships and mood, said SoniaAncoli-Israel, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at theUniversity of California San Diego.

“It’s not so much retention as it is the amount of time it’s goingto take you to retain it,” Ancoli-Israel said.

On a chronic basis, six hours of sleep appears to be the minimumamount an individual can “get by on,” Drummond said.

No one has been able to go very long on less than four hours.

“Even at six hours, when you do that for several days in a row,your reaction times start to go down, and your attention andconcentration goes down,” Drummond said.

Sleep deprivation does not appear to affect learning on a neuronallevel, but instead causes disruptions through secondary means byinterrupting key components of the e
arly stages of learning, such asattention.

These disruptions are not necessarily symptoms of a body trying togo back to sleep.

Research suggests most adults require between eight and nine hoursof sleep to function optimally; however, for young adults andadolescents ? college aged ? the requirement is higher,on the level of 10 or 11 hours.

The significance of sleep deprivation is not only measured interms of single nights, but instead is a problem that compounds overtime as the episodes of sleep loss and accruement of sleep debtbecome chronic. Studies have shown that if an individual gets sixhours of sleep a night for five consecutive nights, one’s attentionis as bad as if one had stayed awake for 24 straight hours.

Four hours of sleep for five straight days is equivalent tostaying awake for 48 hours.

“People can probably get by on six hours of sleep for a fewnights, but if you start to do it chronically, you’re really going toscrew yourself,” Drummond said.

When sleep-deprived, people tend to become less creative in theirdecision-making, and have difficulty shifting between strategies,even when it becomes apparent that a current strategy is failing.Decisions are also more impulsive.

Another factor that goes hand-in-hand with getting too littlesleep, is getting poor sleep, such as the sleep that followsdrinking. People tend to fall asleep faster after a few drinks, andthey reach a deeper sleep much quicker than if they had no drinks,Drummond said. However, as the alcohol in one’s body is metabolizedand the level of alcohol in the blood drops, sleep becomes veryshallow and easily interrupted.

The problem is compounded if one drinks enough to pass out.

“Alcohol is very, very disruptive to your sleep,” Drummond said.

However, the function of sleep in regard to learning iscontroversial, with camps touting its necessity in terms of layingdown long-term memory, while others propose a more peripheralcontribution.

“I think that the most realistic thing to say at this point isthat, when you haven’t had enough sleep, we know for damn sure thatit affects your ability to pay attention and your ability toconcentrate,” Drummond said.

“And that in turn is going to affect your ability to learn.”

Eat right, think right

In terms of proximity and function, the brain and stomach areseparate entities; however, in a large part, ingestion equalscognition. The stomach does not control thought, but what one eats? or doesn’t eat ? does affect one’s ability to think,and in turn learn.

Many students operate under the impression that caffeine is athinking-aid, one that will give them that extra cognitive boostbefore a big exam, and as a stimulant, it is this to an extent? but caffeine comes with a disclaimer.

“It’s kind of like putting a Band-Aid on a big wound; the wound isyou’re not getting enough rest and you’re not taking care ofyourself,” Archer Eller, a registered dietitian, said.

Caffeine facilitates the actions of neurotransmitters, such asthose used by the brain to focus attention.

As a stimulant, caffeine has the potential to improve focus andconcentration in some people, and thus improve one’s ability tolearn. However, caffeine consumers can easily ingest too much,resulting in a situation in which “you’re so ready to focus and soattentive you can’t really decide what’s important and what’s trivialin the world around you,” Bloom said.

Habitual caffeine consumers, such as the regular coffee drinker,can become caffeine dependent ? a state in which the body andbrain have adapted to the presence of caffeine in the bloodstream toa degree where the body expects it, and needs it to balance out thebody’s natural response to the drug, which has now becomeever-present. The caffeine becomes a necessity for functioning at anormal level, and its absence can result in fatigue and headaches.

“For people who are regular coffee drinkers, having coffee willhelp you focus, as long as you don’t exceed your own limit,” Bloomsaid.

“It won’t make you any smarter than you were before, but it willhelp you focus for that period of time.”

Those who use caffeine to get their day moving will potentiallyexperience a period of withdrawal, oftentimes occurring in the lateafternoon when the morning coffee has worn off and the adaptivecountermeasures in the brain have little stimulant left to counter.For habitual drinkers, this can occur if one exceeds the daily dose,but whether or not the individual is a caffeine regular, the tiredeffects are more powerful than if one had reached that part of theday without caffeine intervention.

“It follows all of the rules that you would put up if you wantedto describe a drug to which people become dependent. Caffeine is oneof those, and it doesn’t matter where you take your caffeine, incoffee, tea or Mountain Dew, it’s the same caffeine when it hits yourbrain,” Bloom said.

Ultimately, caffeine is a short-term solution that does not stackup to traversing the average day on one’s own ? absent ofstimulants.

It is not a substitute for sleep, or nutrition.

The significance of diet in terms of learning is based ondeficiencies in the body as a result of eating poorly.

“Stereotypically, a college diet is high in alcohol, high insaturated fats and high in food preservatives and salt, and low inother electrolytes, like potassium and calcium, and low in complexcarbohydrates, some vitamins and minerals,” Eller said.

Fast foods are typically high in fat and sodium, and lacking incertain vitamins, which can produce short bursts of energy that decayinto periods marked by fatigue ? this in turn could affectcognition.

To be healthier, students should be eating more leafy greens,broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts and spinach ? all the darkgreens one can’t really get on the run between classes, at least notin the easy-to-eat, fast-food-esque form that many students rely on.Fruits are a little easier, but again students are going to have tothink ahead and bring their food from home: strawberries andblueberries, and melons like cantaloupe, watermelon and honeydew.

However, eating well does not have to be difficult, and many foodspopular for college students can be part of a healthy diet as long asthey are consumed in moderation ? and in some cases withslight modifications.

“There’s no food that I think people should avoid all together- that’s where people get in trouble with diets. They’ll cutout whole food groups,” Eller said.

“A pizza can be healthy as long as you don’t put too much cheeseon it, and vegetables and not as much meats.”

While Eller does not believe in avoiding any food entirely, hedoes see a need to reduce the intake of certain foods: fast foods,red meat, alcohol.

Yet, health is not measured in terms of food alone.

“It’s synergistic; it’s not any one thing,” Eller said. “There’sno magic bullet: If you eat a perfect diet, but you don’t exerciseand don’t get enough sleep, that’s not going to do any good.”

It’s a performance issue, and the brain, like any other organ,tissue or cell, needs to have its nutritional requirements satisfiedto function optimally. Eller likens preparing to learn to thepreparation an individual would do prior to any other physicalendeavor – because learning is a physical undertaking.

The dichotomy between mind and body is false; they are one and thesame.

“The way I see it is life is a game of statistics: If you eatpoorly and don’t get enough rest, if you don’t exercise, you’repushing statistics,” Eller said.

“The brain’s pretty sensitive, and we don’t know how it’saffected.”

Stress 101

A common thread among this diverse base of learning antagonists isthat they all predispose individuals to yet another detractor:stress.

“During the withdrawal from any of these drugs (alcohol,marijuana, caffeine), your body will react as though it were understress,” Bloom said.

“Part of the adaptation is to turn on the system that we use whenwe are under stress.”

In terms of sleep deprivation,
a lack of sleep increases one’ssusceptibility to psychological stresses ? making it easierfor one to be overwhelmed.

“If your body and your mind are not getting adequate sleep,they’re going to be fatigued, and being fatigued makes it harder todeal with stress of any kind,” Drummond said.

Stress kills neurons in a part of the brain called thehippocampus, which can lead to poorer learning because that part ofthe brain and the surrounding cortex are involved in theconsolidation of memory.

This is particularly true for acute stress, such as thatexperienced when one’s life is in danger. The type of stress commonin the college environment is chronic stress, which is dealt withover time.

“People who put themselves in situations of chronic stress overperiods of months or years, that’s not good for us at all, in termsof health and brain,” Squire said.

Studies suggest that chronic stress kills, too.

“The hippocampus is a particularly sensitive part of the brain forcell death,” Squire said.

“What happens is the cells become hyperactive, and there’s anincrease in calcium influx, and the cells essentially fire themselvesto death.”

The college experience is packaged with textbooks, lectures andstress; it’s about figuring out one’s future, and becoming qualifiedenough to tackle it, which creates an environment where every actionis one part of a larger picture ? toward a greater end.

Getting there is the challenge, and one equivalently difficult tothe courses one takes, and the stress is real, it’s there, it stalksand hunts across a savanna of scantrons and podiums.

So, students often don’t have time to prepare a sack-lunchalternative to the fast food that matches their fast pace, and theyneed an outlet for the stress, a means of escape, which for somecomes bottled or rolled.

And who has time to sleep?

Yet, what’s the point of being a college student if the act ofbeing a college student detracts from one’s ability to be a student?

The point is to learn many things ? and party ? butnot to do one at the expense of the other.

As Squire said: “The lesson is a healthy body means a healthybrain.”