“Decreased cognitive abilities, fatigue, headache … This is what actually happens in our brain when we have a hangover.

“It’s as if the brain had a double day to do the next day because it took the shock of drinking alcohol the day before,” explains Nicolas Cabé, neuroscientist and addictologist. Alcohol modifies brain activity by disrupting neurotransmitters such as dopamine, endorphins, glutamate …

During a “hangover”, the brain compensates to regain normal activity. “It is a bit like the body which goes on strike overall and it resonates on the brain,” adds Nicolas Cabé. “We have attentional disorders that appear, the memory is recorded less well because we are less attentive, less concentrated, suddenly the process of recording information, to encode it in the brain works less well.”

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