Alcohol hangover impacts learning and reward processing within the medial‐frontal cortex

Howse, Ashley D.; Hassall, Cameron D.; Williams, Chad C.; Hajcak, Greg; Krigolson, Olave E.

doi:10.1111/psyp.13081

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Indeed, they were not forced to go to the laboratory to be tested on a specific day, but they could spontaneously reach the laboratory on a day/time of their choice (e.g., on break between two lectures). Surprisingly, the students tested showed a quite high level of hangover severity (AHSS = 4.11), compared to previous studies ( Penning et al, 2013 ; Verster et al, 2014 ; Howse et al, 2018 ), suggesting that even a relatively severe hangover did not prevent participants from going to the university and carrying out their scheduled activities. If this generalized to the majority of hungover students, they would be potentially eligible – among all the other students – for psychological experiments and could consequently affect the internal validity of the same experiments.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 81%

University Students’ Hangover May Affect Cognitive Research

Murgia¹,

Mingolo²,

Prpic³

et al. 2020

Front. Psychol.

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University students are the most employed category of participants in cognitive research. However, researchers cannot fully control what their participants do the night before the experiments (e.g., consumption of alcohol) and, unless the experiment specifically concerns the effects of alcohol consumption, they often do not ask about it. Despite previous studies demonstrating that alcohol consumption leads to decrements in next-day cognitive abilities, the potential confounding effect of hangover on the validity of cognitive research has never been addressed. To address this issue, in the present study, a test-retest design was used, with two groups of university students: at T0, one group was constituted by hungover participants, while the other group was constituted by non-hungover participants; at T1, both groups were re-tested in a non-hangover state. In particular, the tests used were two versions of a parity judgment task and an arithmetic verification task. The results highlight that: (a) the response times of university students experiencing a hangover are significantly slower than those of non-hangover students and (b) the response times of hungover students are slower than those of the same students when re-tested in a non-hangover state. Additionally, it was also observed that the prevalence of hungover students in the university campus varies depending on the day of the week, with a greater chance of enrolling hungover participants on specific days. In light of the latter result, the recruitment of university students as participants in cognitive experiments might lead researchers to erroneously attribute their results to the variables they are manipulating, ignoring the effects of the potential hangover state.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 81%

University Students’ Hangover May Affect Cognitive Research

Murgia¹,

Mingolo²,

Prpic³

et al. 2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…In addition, some studies have focused on women only [45], while others did not mention the sex of their participants [46,47]. Moreover, several studies on cognitive performance included both men and women but omitted any statistical analysis on possible sex effects [6,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55], leaving it unknown whether sex differences were either absent or not investigated. Up to now, six controlled studies examining performance on a variety of cognitive, psychomotor, and memory tests found no significant sex differences on any of the administered tests [56,57,58,59,60,61], and two other studies reported no significant sex differences in driving performance [4,62].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex Differences in the Presence and Severity of Alcohol Hangover Symptoms

Pabst

Devenney

Verster

2019

JCM

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Studies have demonstrated significant sex differences in alcohol intoxication effects. In contrast, the majority of studies on the alcohol hangover phase did not investigate sex differences. Therefore, the current study examined possible sex differences in the presence and severity of alcohol hangover symptoms. Data from n = 2446 Dutch students (male = 50.7%, female = 49.3%) were analyzed. They reported the presence and severity of 22 hangover symptoms experienced after their past month heaviest drinking occasion. Subjects were categorized according to their estimated peak blood alcohol concentration (eBAC) and presence and severity of the hangover symptoms were compared between men and women. In the lowest eBAC group (0% ≤ eBAC < 0.08%), no significant sex differences were found. In the subsequent eBAC group (0.08% ≤ eBAC < 0.11%), severity of nausea was significantly higher in women than in men. In the third eBAC group (0.11% ≤ eBAC < 0.2%), women reported higher severity scores on nausea, tiredness, weakness, and dizziness than men. Men reported the presence of confusion significantly more often than women, and women reported the presence of shivering significantly more often than men. In the fourth eBAC group (0.2% ≤ eBAC < 0.3%), women reported higher severity scores on nausea and tiredness than men. In the highest eBAC group (0.3% ≤ eBAC < 0.4%), no significant sex differences were found. In conclusion, across the eBAC groups, severity scores of nausea and tiredness were higher in women than in men. However, albeit statistically significant, the observed sex differences in presence and severity of hangover symptoms were of small magnitude, and therefore, have little clinical relevance.

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“…Two studies, which included measures on subjective feelings during hangover, only found increases in fatigue or arousal , therefore it was unclear if participants were experiencing a hangover. Seven studies failed to measure BAC at testing , and two studies which did measure BAC showed that participants achieved BAC > 0.02% . Two studies included other treatments in their research design .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic review of the next‐day effects of heavy alcohol consumption on cognitive performance

et al. 2018

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Background and aimsStudies examining the next‐day cognitive effects of heavy alcohol consumption have produced mixed findings, which may reflect inconsistencies in definitions of ‘hangover’. Recent consensus has defined hangover as ‘mental and physical symptoms, experienced the day after a single episode of heavy drinking, starting when blood alcohol concentration (BAC) approaches zero’. In light of this, we aimed to review the literature systematically to evaluate and estimate mean effect sizes of the next‐day effects of heavy alcohol consumption on cognition.MethodsEmbase, PubMed and PsycNET databases were searched between December 2016 and May 2018 using terms based on ‘alcohol’ and ‘hangover’. Studies of experimental designs which reported the next‐day cognitive effects of heavy alcohol consumption in a ‘hangover’ group with BAC < 0.02% were reviewed. A total of 805 articles were identified. Thirty‐nine full‐text articles were screened by two independent reviewers and 19 included in the systematic review; 11 articles provided sufficient data to be included in the meta‐analysis; 1163 participants across 19 studies conducted since 1970 were included in the analysis. Data for study design, hangover severity, BAC at testing and cognitive performance were extracted and effect estimates calculated.ResultsThe systematic review suggested that sustained attention and driving abilities were impaired during hangover. Mixed results were observed for: psychomotor skills, short‐ (STM) and long‐term memory (LTM) and divided attention. The meta‐analysis revealed evidence of impairments in STM [g = 0.64, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.15–1.13], LTM (Hedges’ g = 0.59, 95% CI = 0.01–1.17) sustained attention (g = 0.47, 95% CI = 0.07–0.87) and psychomotor speed (Hedges’ g = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.31–1.00) during alcohol hangover.ConclusionThe research literature suggests that alcohol hangovers may involve impaired cognitive functions and performance of everyday tasks such as driving.

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Alcohol hangover impacts learning and reward processing within the medial‐frontal cortex

Cited by 15 publications

References 51 publications

University Students’ Hangover May Affect Cognitive Research

University Students’ Hangover May Affect Cognitive Research

Sex Differences in the Presence and Severity of Alcohol Hangover Symptoms

A systematic review of the next‐day effects of heavy alcohol consumption on cognitive performance

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