Alcohol Response, Cognitive Impairment, and Alcohol-Related Negative Consequences

描述（由申请人提供）：在新兴的成年人中，酒精使用的公共卫生成本在很大程度上归因于酒精对其他行为风险的影响，如攻击，不安全的性行为和酒后驾驶。越来越多的研究文献表明，酒精中毒降低了执行认知控制，特别是削弱了抑制优势行为反应的能力，这些影响可能有助于增加参与行为风险的倾向。一个单独的文献表明，有变异的人口在急性生理和主观反应的酒精的影响，越来越多的认识到，酒精反应反映了稳定的，遗传影响的个体差异。然而，关于酒精反应的研究主要集中在它们在酒精使用障碍发展中的作用，而忽略了它们对急性酒精中毒相关行为结果的贡献。这项拟议中的研究将测试酒精反应在预测自然环境中与酒精相关的行为风险方面的作用。在第一研究阶段，中度至重度饮酒的新兴成年人将在模拟酒吧环境中完成受试者内安慰剂对照酒精挑战，以评估主观和生理酒精反应以及酒精诱导的抑制性损害。预期更大的酒精反应与更大的酒精诱导的抑制优势反应的损害有关。在第二阶段，同样的参与者将使用基于网络的每日日记报告他们的酒精使用，主观酒精反应和其他行为风险。实验室中更大的酒精反应将前瞻性地预测醉酒行为风险，如在事件水平的每日日记中评估的，控制事件水平的酒精反应和估计的血液酒精浓度。最后，更大的酒精诱导的抑制性损害，预计调解实验室酒精反应和事件水平的行为风险之间的关联。研究结果预计将确定更大的酒精反应的事件水平的行为影响。该项目将整合两条独立的研究路线，证明更大的酒精反应加剧了酒精对行为风险的抑制作用。这些结果将允许将酒精反应纳入酒精对行为影响的理论模型中，并将有助于解释为什么一些新兴的成年人在醉酒时比其他人更容易从事有害行为。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Among emerging adults, the public health costs of alcohol use are attributable in no small part to the effects of alcohol on other behavioral risks such as aggression, unsafe sex, and driving after drinking. A growing research literature demonstrates that alcohol intoxication decreases executive cognitive control, in particular impairing the ability to inhibit prepotent behavioral responses, and these effects may contribute to an increased propensity to engage in behavioral risks. A separate literature demonstrates that there is variability across the population in acute physiological and subjective responses to the effects of alcohol, with increasing recognition that alcohol responses reflect stable, genetically influenced individual differences. Research on alcohol responses, however, has largely focused on their role in the development of alcohol use disorders at the expense of examining their contributions to behavioral outcomes associated with acute alcohol intoxication. The proposed research will test the role of alcohol responses in predicting alcohol-related behavioral risks in the natural environment. In a first study phase, moderate-to-heavy drinking emerging adults will complete a within-subject, placebo-controlled alcohol challenge in a simulated bar environment to assess subjective and physiological alcohol responses and alcohol-induced inhibitory impairment. Greater alcohol responses are expected to be associated with greater alcohol-induced impairment in the inhibition of prepotent responses. In a second phase, the same participants will report on their alcohol use, subjective alcohol responses, and other behavioral risks using Web-based daily diaries. Greater alcohol responses in the lab will prospectively predict intoxicated behavioral risks as assessed in the event-level daily diaries, controlling for event-level alcohol responses and estimated blood alcohol concentration. Finally, greater alcohol-induced inhibitory impairment is expected to mediate the association between lab-based alcohol responses and event-level behavioral risks. The findings are expected to identify the event-level behavioral effects of greater alcohol responses. This project will integrate two separate lines of research by demonstrating that greater alcohol responses exacerbate the disinhibiting effects of alcohol on behavioral risks. These results will permit the incorporation of alcohol responses into theoretical models of the effects of alcohol on behavior and will help explain why some emerging adults are more likely to engage in harmful behaviors while intoxicated relative to others.