Binge drinking can cause absent-mindedness and forgetfulness in many teenager's days later, a study says. A team from Northumbria and Keele universities compared 26 binge drinkers with 34 non-bingers in memory tests, and found the drinkers suffered from short-term memory loss.

The scientists looked at students aged 17 to 19, the age group when the brain is still developing. Researchers said that binge drinking was defined as "at least eight units a session for a man and six for a woman, once or twice a week," BBC reports.

Those studied consumed, on average, 30 units in just two sessions. The results were revealed at the British Psychological Society's annual meeting in Dublin on Friday.

Scientists attribute the forgetfulness to the pre-frontal cortex or hippocampus regions of the brain that were being impaired by the binge drinking. Excess alcohol and binge drinking in particular damages parts of the brain used in everyday memory.

Scientists warn that binge drinking teenagers are not only harming their memory but are also storing up problems for futures in their still-developing brains.