due to the alcohol that is usually consumed. [1] In 2019 a study of 100 college-aged women between the age of 18-24 were given questionnaires daily to access how alcohol had an effect on their memories of a past sexual assault (SA). Some of the women were intoxicated during the assault and about half were not. Women who were intoxicated during the assaults would experience intrusive thoughts and flashbacks of the SA. Whereas, women who were not intoxicated at the time of their assault experienced no more flashbacks or intrusive thoughts than usual. It is common for alcohol to be attributed to forgetting, but when encoding happens specifically while under the influence of alcohol it can make the memory more vivid. Biological functions and explanatory mechanisms At its most basic, state-dependent memory is the product of the strengthening of a particular synaptic pathway in the brain. A neural synapse is the space between brain cells, or neurons, that allows chemical signals to be passed from one neuron to another. Chemicals called neurotransmitters leave one cell, travel across the synapse, and are taken in by the next neuron through a neurotransmitter receptor. This creates a connection between the two neurons called a neural pathway. Memory relies on the strengthening of these neural pathways, associating one neuron with another. When we learn something, new pathways are made between neurons in the brain which then communicate through chemical signals. If these cells have a history of sending out certain signals under specific chemical conditions within the brain, they are then primed to work most effectively under similar circumstances. State-dependent memory happens when a new neural connection is made while the brain is in a specific chemical state - for instance, a child with ADHD learns their multiplication tables while on stimulant medication. Because their brain created these new connections related to multiplication tables while the brain was chemically affected by the stimulant medication, their neurons will be primed in the future to remember these facts best when the same levels of medication are present in the brain. While there is strong evidence for the existence of state-dependent memory, it is less clear what the advantage of this circumstance might be. In 2006, researcher Lorena Pomplio and her team tackled this question as they investigated the presence of state-dependent memory in invertebrates, specifically grasshoppers. Up until this point, only vertebrates had been used to