Abstract
This study used event-related potentials (ERPs) and a modified spatial 2-back task to investigate spatial working memory in binge drinking (BD) college students. Based on the Korean version of the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT-K) and Alcohol Use Questionnaire (AUQ) scores, participants were assigned into BD (n = 25) and non-BD (n = 25) groups. The modified spatial 2-back task includes congruent, incongruent, and lure conditions and participants are required to respond as rapidly and accurately as possible to the congruent stimuli but not to the incongruent and lure stimuli. The BD and non-BD groups exhibited comparable performances on the spatial 2-back task but the BD group showed significantly larger P3 amplitudes than the non-BD group. Additionally, the non-BD group showed larger P3 amplitudes in response to the congruent stimuli compared to the incongruent and lure stimuli whereas the P3 amplitudes in the BD group did not differ significantly among the three conditions. These results indicate that the BD individuals exerted greater effort to maintain performance levels comparable to non-BD individuals and that they were less efficient in differentiating or allocating attentional resources between relevant and irrelevant information.
Highlights
Binge drinking (BD), a pattern of excessive alcohol consumption followed by a period of abstinence, is defined on the basis of the quantity, frequency and speed of alcohol consumption
BD, which has detrimental effects on health and social functioning [2,3,4], is prevalent among college students [5,6]; it increases the likelihood of the development of an alcohol use disorder (AUD,[7])
NonBD individuals had larger P3 amplitudes in response to congruent stimuli than in response to incongruent stimuli, whereas the P3 amplitudes of BD individuals did not differ between congruent and incongruent stimuli. These results indicate that BD individuals have deficits in memory updating and exert greater cognitive effort to perform working memory tasks as successfully as non-BD individuals
Summary
Binge drinking (BD), a pattern of excessive alcohol consumption followed by a period of abstinence, is defined on the basis of the quantity, frequency and speed of alcohol consumption. Increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and cerebellum is observed in normal controls during the performance of a spatial working memory task [15,16]. Studies investigating spatial working memory in normal controls using the modified spatial n-back task have observed significantly longer response times and lower accuracy rates in response to lure stimuli than to incongruent stimuli [30]. These results indicate that the repeatedly presented identical stimuli produce interference while the successively presented stimuli are being updated by the working memory system, which would require greater cognitive effort to control the lure stimuli. No studies have investigated spatial working memory in BD individuals using ERPs and a modified n-back task
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