Alcohol floods your brain with adenosine A1 receptors, the same chemical buildup that happens when you're severely sleep deprived. Both slam the dimmer switch on neural activity, making you drowsy and impairing how you think.
This is what alcohol does to your brain. What you're looking at here is the availability of adenosine A1 receptors. They skyrocket when you drink. But here's the twist. This is the same system that builds up sleep pressure after profound sleep deprivation. So in other words, both alcohol and sleep loss slam the dimmer switch in your brain, driving sleepiness and cognitive impairment.
