- A well-known side effect of alcohol is the loosening it has on inhibitions. Alcohol makes neurons (nerve cells) much more permeable. This enables sodium ions, present in axons sprouting from nerve cells, to pass more easily out of cell membranes, negatively affecting the function of these cells.
Textbook I got the principle of this from didn't explain exactly *how* this affected the function of nerve cells. Do a large number of sodium ions stay out of the cell preventing nerve impulses, or do the sodium ions going outside the cell actually start an accidental impulse? -- sodium
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