Acute alcohol effects on impulsivity: associations with drinking and driving behavior

Abstract

Aims Although drink drivers exhibit higher levels of trait impulsivity, no studies have tested the hypothesis that drink drivers experience increased impulsivity while intoxicated. We tested this hypothesis for two impulsivity constructs: delay discounting and behavioral inhibition. Design A within-subjects study comparing performance of drink drivers and non-drink drivers on behavioral measures of impulsivity in alcohol and no-beverage sessions. Setting A laboratory setting at the University of Missouri. Participants Twenty-nine young adults who were at least moderate drinkers were recruited from the local community and the University of Missouri. Measurements Impulsivity was assessed using the Two Choice Impulsivity Paradigm (TCIP) and the Stop-Signal Task. Participants also completed self-report measures of binge drinking and trait impulsivity. Findings In the no-beverage session, TCIP impulsive choices did not differ between drinking and driving groups (p = .93). In the alcohol session, drink drivers made more TCIP impulsive choices on both the ascending (p < .01) and descending limb (p < .01) of the blood alcohol concentration curve than their peers who did not drink and drive. Drinking and driving groups did not differ on the Stop-Signal Task. Supplementary analyses indicated that effects for the TCIP were not explained by individual differences in trait impulsivity. Conclusions Individuals who report having three or more drinks before driving show greater impulsivity when under the influence of alcohol than those who do not report heavy drinking before driving.

Impairment of manual but not saccadic response inhibition following acute alcohol intoxication

“…Our first main result replicates a substantial literature reporting alcohol-induced impairments to manual SSRT (e.g., Caswell et al, 2013;de Wit et al, 2000;Dougherty et al, 2008;Fillmore and VogelSprott, 1999;Gan et al, 2014;Loeber and Duka, 2009;McCarthy et al, 2012;Nikolaou et al, 2013;Ramaekers and Kuypers, 2006;Reynolds et al, 2006). However, the effect size and Bayes factors were smaller than anticipated.…”

“…Participants were undergraduate, postgraduate and staff volunteers at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, meeting the following pre-registered inclusion criteria: body mass index (BMI) within the range 18-28 (as McCarthy et al, 2012), self-reported alcohol use below 'alcohol dependence' (less than 16 on both the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, AUDIT; Babor et al, 2001, and the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire, SADQ; Stockwell et al, 1983); experience of consuming 6 UK units (1 unit = 8 g ethanol) of alcohol in one session on at least 6 occasions within the past year (i.e., at least once every other month on average); breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) of 0 μg/100 ml on arrival, confirmation of 24 h abstinence of alcohol, 1 week abstinence of illicit drug use and 4 h fasting; self-reportedly not pregnant; no allergic reaction to alcohol (or Orangina) or clinically relevant self-reported anxiety or depression (measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, HADS; Zigmond and Snaith, 1983, cut-off score of > 11 on either scale); no taking of neuroactive medication or medication that may be affected by alcohol. Participants also provided information about average alcohol consumption over the past month and completed the Mother/Father-Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (M/F-SMAST) and Family Tree Questionnaire (FTQ) to assess family history of alcohol-related problems.…”

“…Given possible sex differences in baseline performance of the manual stop-signal task (e.g., McCarthy et al, 2012), all analyses were conducted additionally using gender as a covariate. Furthermore, assessment of the impact of order effects of both block type and drink type were conducted for all analyses to understand whether these are impacting manual or saccadic SSRT.…”

“…Most reports of alcohol disrupting inhibitory control in healthy volunteers have employed the go/no-go task (Mulvihill et al, 1997;Weafer and Fillmore, 2008), cued go/no-go task (Marczinski and Fillmore, 2003;Weafer and Fillmore, 2012) and the stop signal reaction time task (Caswell et al, 2013;de Wit et al, 2000;Dougherty et al, 2008;Fillmore and Vogel-Sprott, 1999;Gan et al, 2014;Loeber and Duka, 2009;McCarthy et al, 2012;Nikolaou et al, 2013;Ramaekers and Kuypers, 2006;Reynolds et al, 2006). Although there exist reports where alcohol had no significant effect Duka, 2008, 2007), taken together, these studies suggest that even a relatively small dose of alcohol (e.g., 0.45 g/kg) normally increases the number of commission errors in the go/no-go task or slows the manual stop signal reaction time (SSRT) in the stop signal task.…”

Pubertal Maturation Compression and Behavioral Impulsivity Among Boys at Increased Risk for Substance Use

“…Rapid response impulsivity tasks have shown larger effects in differentiating performance between individuals with psychiatric conditions like childhood disruptive behavior disorders from healthy controls (e.g., Dougherty et al, 2003), while reward choice impulsivity tasks have demonstrated larger effects in relationship to substance use and substance use risk (Hamilton et al, 2015). For example, previous research has demonstrated relatively larger effects of consequence sensitivity than response initiation and/or inhibition when comparing performance of healthy controls with adolescents who frequently use marijuana (Dougherty et al, 2013), adults who have binge drinking patterns of alcohol use (Sanchez-Roige et al, 2014), and following acute alcohol consumption among young adults who drink and drive (McCarthy et al, 2012). Not only are individual differences in reward choice impulsivity systematically related to substance use, but this study found them to be associated with variation in pubertal maturation as well.…”