Project 8. Alcohol and Executive Cognitive Function

项目摘要：饮酒导致许多行为问题，包括风险增加 事故，人际冲突和风险决策，这些都是医疗保健成本的主要原因 在美国每年。最近的研究表明，酒精会损害所谓的“执行能力”， 认知功能”（ECFs），并表明这种损害是酒精相关的驱动力， 行为上的改变然而，酒精对ECF的影响，包括ECF的特定方面是否 比其他人更容易受到酒精引起的损害，还没有完全了解。此外还有 执行能力的个体差异很大，但很少有人知道这些基线差异是如何产生的。 可能减轻酒精对ECF的急性影响。因此，本建议的长期目标是 增加对酒精对ECF影响的了解，包括ECF的哪些方面最容易受到 酒精，ECF的可分离方面如何相互关联，以及这些影响如何在 个体为了实现这一目标，将通过3个实验来解决一系列具体目标。这些 目的包括确定酒精对ECF的三个具体组成部分（转移，更新， 抑制），测试酒精诱导的ECF损伤是否在上升和下降过程中存在差异。 血液酒精浓度曲线的四肢，以及ECFs基线差异的程度 减轻酒精的急性作用。最后，这三个实验的设计，以便允许一个总体的 元分析整合使用所有这些数据，以测试如何的三个组成部分， ECF相互关联，并与复杂执行任务的性能相关。像这样的设计 在任何已发表的关于酒精影响的研究中使用过。该项目的成果将具有重要意义。 对理解酒精中毒引起的认知障碍的影响。

Project Summary: Alcohol consumption leads to a number of behavioral problems, including increased risk of accidents, interpersonal conflict, and risky decision-making, which account for significant health care costs in the U.S. annually. Recent research indicates that alcohol causes impairment of so-called "executive cognitive functions" (ECFs), and suggests that this impairment is the driving force behind alcohol-related changes in behavior. However, alcohol's effects on ECF, including whether particular aspects of ECF are more susceptible to alcohol-induced impairment than others, are not fully understood. In addition, there are wide individual differences in executive ability, but very little is known about how these baseline differences may moderate the acute effects of alcohol on ECF. Therefore, the long-term objective of this proposal is to increase understanding of alcohol's effects on ECF, including which aspects of ECF are most impaired by alcohol, how separable aspects of ECF relate to one another, and how these effects differ between individuals. To achieve this goal, a series of specific aims will be addressed using 3 experiments. These aims include determining alcohol's effects on three specific components of ECF (shifting, updating, and inhibition), testing whether alcohol-induced impairment of ECF differs on the ascending and descending limbs of the blood alcohol concentration curve, and the extent to which baseline differences in ECFs moderate the acute effects of alcohol. Finally, the three experiments are designed so as to permit an overarching meta-analytic integration using data from all of them, in order to test how the three components of ECF relate to one another and to performance on complex executive tasks. A design like this has never been used in any published study on the effects of alcohol. The outcome of this project will have important implications for understanding the cognitive impairment resulting from alcohol intoxication.