The effects of alcohol on the cognitive function of males and females and on skills relating to car driving

Abstract

Nine male and nine female subjects received one of four doses of alcohol (0.25,0.5, 0.75 or 1 g per kg of bodyweight for male subjects: females received 92% of these values) or placebo. Similar blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) for males and females were reached. Subjects were then tested on two batteries of psychological tests related to skills involved in driving. These included psychomotor, cognitive and subjective assessment tasks. The results showed a linear increase in the disruption of performance with dose for many of the tests, particularly those involving psychomotor function. In addition it was demonstrated that on certain tasks males were affected more by alcohol than females. It is concluded that moderate doses of alcohol (resulting in BACs of 0.05 to 0.08 g/100ml)can produce significant deficits in perceptual and motor skills related to driving a vehicle.

The acute effect of low-dose alcohol on working memory during mental arithmetic

“…These observations, however, may not have direct implications on how alcohol interferes with cognitive abilities in more frequently occurring circumstances when the effect of low "social" dosages have to be accounted for. Only in a few studies have the effect of low (below 0.5 g/kg) dosages been investigated showing that various skills are indeed impaired as a result of such alcohol challenges (Kerr et al, 2004;Banks et al, 2004;Jaaskelainen et al, 1999).…”

Reassessing Fitness-to-Drive in Drinker Drivers: The Role of Cognition and Personality

“…The group of DD performed significantly worse than their paired controls. While previous studies found no significant effects of alcohol assumption on the mental rotation ability [ 90 ], more recent studies have shown alcohol-related changes in the neural activation underlying the execution of rotation tasks [ 70 ]. Considering the results presented here, the worse mental rotation performance of DD compared with controls is supposed to be (1) the effect on performance of stable changes in the brain for the effect of a persistent alcohol use or (2) the effect of associations between a poor mental rotation ability (no alcohol-related) with the assumption of maladaptive behaviors such as driving in a state of intoxication.…”