EQUILIBRIUM IMPAIRMENT AS A CUE FOR BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL DISCRIMINATION

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Excessive alcohol consumption contributes to tens of thousands of deaths each year. Animal studies have shown that internal stimuli produced by ethanol can function as discriminative stimuli enabling the animal in accordance with the presence or absence of alcohol, or even a particular alcohol dose. In this regard, humans who are trained to estimate their blood alcohol levels (BALs) accurately may be more likely to avoid excessive alcohol use by stopping drinking earlier within a drinking session. Prior efforts to train drinkers to discriminate their own BALs have compared the effectiveness of attending to "external" cues (e.g., knowledge of intake-time-metabolism interactions) versus "internal" cues (e.g., increased awareness of bodily sensations) of the stimulus effects of alcohol. The body will test the hypothesis that such feedback will enable adults to use impairment of their own equilibrium as a tool for accurate estimation of their own BALs. This study will use an A-B-A within-subjects design requiring three sessions for each of four groups. In the first and third sessions, subjects will estimate their BALs following each of six drinks of varying ethanol doses. Before making each BAL estimate during the second session, subjects attending to external cues will receive feedback from the results of a computerized dynamic posturography test, while subjects attending to internal cues will complete several self-report mood/symptom questionnaires and be informed of their heart rates and blood pressures. A third group will receive both cues, while a fourth group will receive no training. The main dependent variable is accuracy of BAL estimation following training. We hypothesize that self-monitoring of impaired balance is more generalizable than previously studied "external" cues for BAL estimation. Proper use of cue training by heavy drinkers could reduce their potential for alcohol-related problems.