Children need to understand how the brain works to help them make informed decisions about how to protect their brains. Alcohol can interfere with how we send and receive messages. It is very important to understand what happens if people interfere with this process by using alcohol.

The activity below is a simple activity that you can do with your family to show how messages can get distorted.

Protect Your Brain Telephone
One member of the family whispers a sentence to the person sitting next to him or her, who then passes it on to the next person until everyone has heard the message. The last person to receive the message then tells everyone what he or she heard and then the first person tells what he or she said.

Did the message arrive intact or did it get distorted? Discuss how sending messages from one neuron in the brain to another is something like this game but much more complicated. Talk about how important it is for messages to be processed correctly by the brain. Then discuss as a family what could happen if messages were not received correctly. What trouble could be caused by a distorted message? For example, the person receiving the message could:

• Get the wrong idea
• Go to the wrong place
• Do the wrong homework assignment

Think of other things that could happen.

Alcohol can distort, confuse, slow down, and sometimes even block messages between our brain and the rest of our body.

Have fun!
And for more child-friendly brain information and games, visit the Neuroscience for Kids Web site.