High-dose alcohol intoxication differentially modulates cognitive subprocesses involved in response inhibition

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann-Kathrin Stock ◽  
Tom Schulz ◽  
Martin Lenhardt ◽  
Meinolf Blaszkewicz ◽  
Christian Beste
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 1317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Opitz ◽  
Jan Hubert ◽  
Christian Beste ◽  
Ann-Kathrin Stock

Alcohol hangover commonly occurs after an episode of heavy drinking. It has previously been demonstrated that acute high-dose alcohol intoxication reduces cognitive control, while automatic processes remain comparatively unaffected. However, it has remained unclear whether alcohol hangover, as a consequence of binge drinking, modulates the interplay between cognitive control and automaticity in a comparable way. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of alcohol hangover on controlled versus automatic response selection and inhibition. N = 34 healthy young men completed a Simon Nogo task, once sober and once hungover. Hangover symptoms were experimentally induced by a standardized administration of alcoholic drinks (with high congener content) on the night before the hangover appointment. We found no significant hangover effects, which suggests that alcohol hangover did not produce the same functional deficits as an acute high-dose intoxication. Yet still, add-on Bayesian analyses revealed that hangover slightly impaired response selection, but not response inhibition. This pattern of effects cannot be explained with the current knowledge on how ethanol and its metabolite acetaldehyde may modulate response selection and inhibition via the dopaminergic or GABAergic system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 481
Author(s):  
Wiebke Bensmann ◽  
Nicolas Zink ◽  
Annett Werner ◽  
Christian Beste ◽  
Ann-Kathrin Stock

Alcohol increases GABAergic signaling and decreases glutamatergic signaling in the brain. Variations in these neurotransmitter levels may modulate/predict executive functioning. Matching this, strong impairments of response inhibition are one of the most consistently reported cognitive/behavioral effects of acute alcohol intoxication. However, it has never been investigated whether baseline differences in these neurotransmitters allow to predict how much alcohol intoxication impairs response inhibition, and whether this is reflected in neurophysiological measures of cognitive control. We used MR spectroscopy to assess baseline (i.e., sober) GABA and glutamate levels in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and striatum in n = 30 healthy young males, who were subsequently tested once sober and once intoxicated (1.01 permille). Inhibition was assessed with the sustained attention to response task (SART). This paradigm also allows to examine the effect of different degrees of response automatization, which is a known modulator for response inhibition, but does not seem to be substantially impaired during acute intoxication. As a neurophysiological correlate of response inhibition and control, we quantified EEG-derived theta band power and located its source using beamforming analyses. We found that alcohol-induced response inhibition deficits only occurred in the case of response automatization. This was reflected by decreased theta band activity in the left supplementary motor area (SMA), which may reflect modulations in the encoding of a surprise signal in response to inhibition cues. However, we did not find that differences in baseline (i.e., sober) GABA or glutamate levels significantly modulated differences in the size of alcohol-induced inhibition deficits.


2017 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 242-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Eileen Campbell ◽  
Christopher D. Chambers ◽  
Christopher P.G. Allen ◽  
Craig Hedge ◽  
Petroc Sumner

Author(s):  
Nicolas Zink ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Witold X. Chmielewski ◽  
Christian Beste ◽  
Ann-Kathrin Stock

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Theresia Yinski ◽  
Syntia Nusanti

Introduction : Methanol-induced toxic optic neuropathy (TON) is defined as a visual impairment due to optic nerve damage by methanol poisoning. Not only is this disease entity underdiagnosed at times, this sudden blindness is also often diagnosed at a stage where recovery of vision is no longer possible. Materials and Methods : A literature search was conducted using PubMed, ClinicalKey, Google Scholar and ScienceDirect by combining the keywords ‘methanol’ or ‘methyl alcohol’, ‘intoxication’ or ‘poisoning’, ‘toxic optic neuropathy’, and ‘visual acuity’ with ‘high-dose steroid’. Results : The total amount of subjects in each article varied from 2 to 37, with mean age distribution of 26.34 to 55 years old, where most patients were male. The follow up duration varied from 1 week to 1 year. Four articles do not mention high-dose steroids treatment as therapy while the other four mention use of 1000 mg of intravenous methylprednisolone per day with divided doses of either 2x500 mg or 4x250 mg. Improvement percentages show 100% improvement in all studies that used high-dose steroids, while in the non-high-dose steroids studies the improvement percentages range from 33.33% to 90%. Summary : High-dose steroids are showing efficacy in improving visual acuity and reducing the inflammation in methanol-induced TON. The period of how fast the therapy takes effect is inconclusive, as the mean follow-up time differs widely per study. However, because most of the reviewed studies here are retrospective case series, a larger, more comprehensive study is required to acknowledge more of the efficacy profile.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Witold X. Chmielewski ◽  
Nicolas Zink ◽  
Keluf Ylva Chmielewski ◽  
Christian Beste ◽  
Ann‐Kathrin Stock

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann‐Kathrin Stock ◽  
Wiebke Bensmann ◽  
Nicolas Zink ◽  
Alexander Münchau ◽  
Christian Beste

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Minchekar Vikas S

The eyewitness is a crucial source of evidence in the criminal judicial system. However, rely on the reminiscence of an eyewitness especially intoxicated eyewitness is not always judicious. It might lead to some serious consequences. Day by day, alcohol-related crimes or the criminal incidences in bars, nightclubs and restaurants are increasing rapidly. Tackling such cases is very complicated to any investigation officers. The people in that incidents are violated due to the alcohol consumption hence, their ability to identify the suspects or recall these phenomena is affected. The studies on the effects of alcohol consumption on motor activities such as driving and surgeries have received much attention. However, the effect of alcohol intoxication on memory has received little attention from the psychology, law, forensic and criminology scholars across the world. In the Indian context, the published articles on this issue are equal to none up to present day. This field experiment investigation aimed at to finding out the effect of alcohol consumption on identification accuracy in lineups. Thirty adult social drinkers, and thirty sober adults were randomly recruited for the study. The sober adults were assigned into “placebo” beverage group while social drinkers were divided into two group e. g. “low dose” of alcohol (0.2 g/kg) and “high dose” of alcohol (0.8 g/kg). The social drinkers were divided in such a way that their level of blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) will become different. After administering the beverages for the placebo group and liquor to the social drinkers for 40 to 50 minutes of the period the five-minute video clip of mock crime is shown to all in a group of four to five members. After the exposure of video clip subjects were given 10 portraits and asked them to recognize whether they are involved in mock crime or not. Moreover, they were also asked to describe the incident. The subjects were given two opportunities to recognize the portraits and to describe the events; the first opportunity is given immediately after the video clip and the second was 24 hours later. The obtained data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA and Scheffe’sposthoc multiple comparison tests. The results indicated that the “high dose” group is remarkably different from the “placebo” and “low dose” groups. But, the “placebo” and “low dose” groups are equally performed. The subjects in a “high dose” group recognized only 20% faces correctly while the subjects in a “placebo” and “low dose” groups are recognized 90 %. This study implied that the intoxicated witnesses are less accurate to recognize the suspects and also less capable of describing the incidents where crime has taken place. Moreover, this study does not assert that intoxicated eyewitness is generally less trustworthy than their sober counterparts.


1985 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 505
Author(s):  
RL Norton ◽  
H Chen ◽  
L Koenig ◽  
JE Buchan ◽  
J Kendall

Author(s):  
M. Isaacson ◽  
M.L. Collins ◽  
M. Listvan

Over the past five years it has become evident that radiation damage provides the fundamental limit to the study of blomolecular structure by electron microscopy. In some special cases structural determinations at very low doses can be achieved through superposition techniques to study periodic (Unwin & Henderson, 1975) and nonperiodic (Saxton & Frank, 1977) specimens. In addition, protection methods such as glucose embedding (Unwin & Henderson, 1975) and maintenance of specimen hydration at low temperatures (Taylor & Glaeser, 1976) have also shown promise. Despite these successes, the basic nature of radiation damage in the electron microscope is far from clear. In general we cannot predict exactly how different structures will behave during electron Irradiation at high dose rates. Moreover, with the rapid rise of analytical electron microscopy over the last few years, nvicroscopists are becoming concerned with questions of compositional as well as structural integrity. It is important to measure changes in elemental composition arising from atom migration in or loss from the specimen as a result of electron bombardment.


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