Binge drinking and inhibitory control: a mini-review of fMRI studies.

This article reviews functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies investigating the neural correlates of inhibitory control in binge drinking (BD), defined as consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short time followed by abstinence. The review identified three case-control fMRI studies involving young adults (18–25 years) that consistently showed increased activation in frontoparietal brain regions—including the inferior, middle, and superior frontal gyri, anterior insula, and cingulate cortex—during inhibitory control tasks in binge drinkers compared to light drinkers, despite similar task accuracy. These findings suggest that binge drinkers may engage compensatory neural mechanisms to maintain inhibitory control, supporting the continuum hypothesis that BD and alcohol use disorder (AUD) represent successive stages of alcohol-related brain dysfunction. The authors note limitations such as small sample sizes, heterogeneous BD definitions, and varied tasks, emphasizing the need for longitudinal studies with larger, well-characterized samples to clarify the role of inhibitory control deficits in the development and maintenance of BD patterns.