Abstract
Long-term alcohol abuse is associated with poorer cognitive performance. However, the associations between light and moderate drinking and cognitive performance are less clear. We assessed this association via cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses in a sample of 702 Dutch students. At baseline, alcohol consumption was assessed using questionnaires and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) across four weeks (‘Wave 1’). Subsequently, cognitive performance, including memory, planning, and reasoning, was assessed at home using six standard cognition tests presented through an online platform. A year later, 436 students completed the four weeks of EMA and online cognitive testing (‘Wave 2’). In both waves, there was no association between alcohol consumption and cognitive performance. Further, alcohol consumption during Wave 1 was not related to cognitive performance at Wave 2. In addition, EMA-data-based drinking patterns, which varied widely between persons but were relatively consistent over time within persons, were also not associated with cognitive performance. Post-hoc analyses of cognitive performance revealed higher within-person variance scores (from Wave 1 to Wave 2) than between-person variance scores (both Wave 1 and Wave 2). In conclusion, no association was observed between alcohol consumption and cognitive performance in a large Dutch student sample. However, the online cognitive tests performed at home may not have been sensitive enough to pick up differences in cognitive performance associated with alcohol consumption.
Highlights
Alcohol consumption is common among adolescents and young adults [1]
Excessive alcohol consumption is assumed to be neurotoxic [5], and it is well known that long-term alcohol abuse in adults leads to neurodegeneration
We hypothesized that light to moderate drinkers would obtain similar cognitive task scores as compared to abstainers, whereas heavy drinkers would obtain lower cognitive task scores
Summary
Alcohol consumption is common among adolescents and young adults [1]. at this young age when brains are still maturing [2], both structurally [3] and functionally [4], alcohol consumption may have detrimental long-term neurological effects. Cross-sectional studies in young adult binge drinkers showed impaired executive cognitive performance and brain development compared to nonbinge-drinking control subjects, as suggested by electrophysiological differences during the execution of a visual task with a high working memory load [8,9,10]. After transitioning into heavy drinking, the participants showed more activation during response inhibition than nondrinking controls This suggests that neural vulnerabilities exist prior to the onset of substance use, and the initiation of heavy drinking may lead to additional alterations in brain functioning [15]. There has only been one study with a longitudinal design using a large group of young adults, which included all drinking ranges and various drinking patterns and focused on the association between alcohol consumption and cognitive performance [18]. We hypothesized that light to moderate drinkers obtain similar cognitive task scores as compared to abstainers, whereas heavy drinkers would obtain lower cognitive task scores
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