Alcohol ‘can help improve memory’

Despite it being common knowledge that drinking can often lead to a patchy memory, a neurologist has told how alcohol can actually help improve recall in certain circumstances.

Can’t remember what your friend told you over a glass of wine the other night? Have a glass tonight and you’ll be more likely to remember (Photo: Wiki)

Dr Dean Burnett has said that after a few drinks, people are quicker to remember previously lost memories – but only if those memories were from a time that they had been drinking.

“To put it simply, substances such as alcohol or stimulants or anything that alters brain activity bring about a specific neurological state,” he said in his latest book, Idiot Brains, which is currently being serialised in The Guardian. 

“If you were to be told some interesting gossip or useful information after a couple of glasses of wine, your brain would encode your slightly intoxicated state as part of the memory, so would be better able to retrieve this memory if you were to have another couple of glasses of wine on a different night, not right after the first two.”

“In this scenario, a glass of wine can indeed improve your memory,” he said.