Saccadic eye movements after low-dose oral alcohol exposure

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The influence of low-dose alcohol intake on reflexive visually guided saccades was investigated. METHODS: 40 healthy human subjects were orally given alcohol resulting in lowdose alcohol concentration (less than 0.8‰) blood alcohol concentration. Before and after exposure, horizontal saccadic eye movements were recorded at several points in time. The recordings were evaluated with regard to accuracy of the eye movements, latency, the peak eye velocity and the time constant that characterizes the main sequence. The results were compared to recordings from a reference group. RESULTS: It was found that the saccadic eye movement was clearly altered by low-dose alcohol intake. However, its characteristics were not unambiguously pathological when compared to the reference group, even though the subjects reported a moderate to strong effect of alcohol and there were clear signs of inebriation. CONCLUSIONS: The findings render the evaluation of saccades unsuitable as a simple test for the detection of low-dose alcohol intake. Methods: 40 healthy human subjects were orally given alcohol resulting in low-dose alcohol concentration (less than 0.8 ‰) blood alcohol concentration. Before and after exposure, horizontal saccadic eye movements were recorded at several points in time. The recordings were evaluated with regard to accuracy of the eye movements, latency, the peak eye velocity and the time constant that characterizes the main sequence. The results were compared to recordings from a reference group.Results: It was found that the saccadic eye movement was clearly altered by low-dose alcohol intake.However, its characteristics were not unambiguously pathological when compared to the reference group, even though the subjects reported a moderate to strong effect of alcohol and there were clear signs of inebriation. Conclusions:The findings render the evaluation of saccades unsuitable as a simple test for the detection of low-dose alcohol intake.

Effects of acute alcohol ingestion on eye movements and cognition: A double-blind, placebo-controlled study

“…Our results corroborate studies that suggest that moderate alcohol ingestion may affect eye movements, in which this alterations evidence impairments in top–down regulative cognitive functions [4, 17, 18, 50]. Although both studies have within subject design, a direct comparison between our findings and those of other studies that assess the relationship between alcohol use and eye movements is difficult due to methodological differences related to, for instance, the form in which the dose of alcohol is administered, the eye tracker equipment, the sample size, and the eye movement parameters that were analyzed.…”

“…For instance, this is the case for the study by Marinkovic et al [5]; although these authors not used double-blind design and administer different doses among participants based on sex (0.6 g/kg of alcohol to male participants and 0.55 g/kg to female participants) different from that used in the present study, in which we use software that is based on anthropometric characteristics to measure the exact amount of alcohol to be ingested to achieve 0.08% BAC. Moreover, our work differs from other studies [5, 17, 18] by the visual stimulus used, which is a complex task that involves problem solving and decision making.…”

“…The alcohol works as a depressor of the CNS [7, 12], which may alter diffusely cognitive and perceptual processes [2, 6, 18]. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of moderate acute alcohol ingestion (0.08% BAC) on the eye movement pattern, as an indicator of cognitive processing [34].…”

“…These effects of alcohol on the CNS may result in alterations in the visual system that are related, for instance, to color perception [6], contrast sensitivity [2], as well as on eye movements [5, 17, 18]. Typical eye movements whilst scanning an image can be classifies as saccades and fixations [19–21].…”

Prenatal alcohol exposure potentiates chronic neuropathic pain, spinal glial and immune cell activation and alters sciatic nerve and DRG cytokine levels

“…Impairments in neurogenesis, motor and memory performance and neurotransmitter activity in various brain regions are consistently observed in studies using animal models of moderate PAE where peak maternal serum alcohol concentrations in the range of ≤0.02 – 0.17 g/dl are achieved. Despite the US legal intoxication limit while operating vehicles is 0.08g/dl blood alcohol concentration (for review, [104]), lower blood alcohol concentration levels may still impair cognitive and behavioral performance in adults [13,35,36,84]. In rat and rhesus monkey, moderate PAE models that utilize a voluntary drinking paradigm impair performance on hippocampal-, cerebellar-, and cortical-dependent behavioral tasks [2,5,15,20,43,83,86].…”