Alcohol Hangover Slightly Impairs Response Selection but not Response Inhibition

Abstract

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.

Alcohol Hangover Differentially Modulates the Processing of Relevant and Irrelevant Information

“…Eventually, n = 35 participants (23.1 ± 2.7 years old) were included in the statistical analyses because one participant was excluded due to performance accuracy close to chance level (i.e., below 55%) in at least one experimental task condition and another participant was excluded because of his high residual breath alcohol concentration (BrAC = 0.45% ) at the hangover session, which would have taken a waiting time of 4 to 5 additional hours until sobriety and he was not able to invest the required time on that day. Please also note that the sample in this publication largely overlapped with that of a previous publication investigating the influence of alcohol hangover on meta-control/the interplay between controlled and automated processes [19].…”

“…The experimental design was identical to that described in previous publications by our group [18,19], and is illustrated in Figure 2.…”

“…publication investigating the influence of alcohol hangover on meta-control/the interplay between controlled and automated processes [19].…”

“…Another important factor for impaired driving skills are slowing and impairments of motor responses and coordination during hangover [6,7,11,14,15]. Even though 2 of 17 distraction is recognized as a major risk factor for impaired driving [16], we still know rather little about whether and how alcohol hangover changes the way we process and respond to distracting information, other than that hangover may influence response selection and conflict monitoring, thus impairing goal-directed behavior [17][18][19]. Specifically, only very little is known about whether alcohol hangover differently modulates the integration and processing of irrelevant vs. relevant information, even though this may give rise to conflicts and distraction at later information processing stages.…”

“…To investigate this research question, we subjected n = 35 healthy young males to an experimental within-subject study design that was comparable to the procedure used in previously published hangover studies from our group [18,19]. Each participant was once tested sober and once after having consumed 2.64 gr of alcohol per estimated liter of body water on the night before testing.…”