Drunk people are stupid. Anyone who has walked around North Campus on a Friday night or woken up regretting the night before can attest to that. But once the blur clears and you’re able to handle the daylight again, will your brain still be the same? To put it another way: How many brain cells are killed by each drink?

Actually, the answer is none. Alcohol (or, if you want to be specific, ethanol) doesn’t actually destroy any brain cells. Instead, it disrupts the brain’s chemical receptors, which in turn affects the way impulses travel between nerve cells. So while alcohol consumption won’t actually kill your brain, it will affect the way nerve cells communicate with each other and with the nervous system. Dr. Toshio Narahashi, a Feinberg professor of pharmacology and biological chemistry, says that researchers are still debating exactly how alcohol causes these problems and how they lead to the slurred speech, lack of coordination, and memory loss associated with drinking. But it is highly likely that these effects are because of the communication errors, not the destruction of brain cells. (But doesn’t “killing my brain cells” have a better ring to it than “disrupting my chemical receptors?”)

But don’t start gulping down the jungle juice or pounding the Jagerbombs without care just yet. Dr. Narahashi says the long-term effects on the brain are still under debate, so it’s not clear that your nerve cells will be completely normal after a rough weekend. And a recent study by researchers at Wellesley College found that, over time, drinking can reduce the size of your brain. Sure, even people who had 14 drinks per week for years only saw a decrease of 1.6 percent on average, there seems to be a steady increase in the rate of brain shrinkage with the amount of alcohol consumed on a regular basis.

Is something on your mind, but you’re too busy shrinking your brain to find the answer? Send questions to ubernerdnbn@gmail.com.