Effects of alcohol on cognitive control: MEG analysis in temporal and spectral domains

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Effects of alcohol on cognitive control: MEG analysis in temporal and spectral domains Sanja Kovacevic1*, Sheeva Azma2, Jason Sherfey1, Sarah Sheldon1, Andrei Irimia1 and Ksenija Marinkovic1 1 Univ. California San Diego, Radiology, United States 2 Georgetown University, United States Moderate alcohol intoxication impairs executive functions as it interferes with the ability to evaluate competing demands of a task, inhibit maladaptive responses, and apply the necessary behavioral adjustments. In order to examine effects of alcohol on spatio-temporal processing stages of cognitive control in both time- and frequency-domains, we used anatomically-constrained magnetoencephalography (aMEG). 306 channels of the MEG signal were recorded from the whole head (Elekta Neuromag). Noise-normalized distributed minimum norm inverse solutions were constrained to each person’s cortical surface reconstructed from anatomical MRI scans and averaged across subjects. Source estimates of broadband frequency power were obtained with wavelet method. Healthy subjects took part in both alcohol (0.6 g/kg ethanol for men, 0.55 g/kg women) and placebo conditions as they participated in a modified Stroop task that combined reading and color naming of color-related and non-color words. Strong Stroop interference effect was reflected in lower accuracy and longer response times (RTs) on incongruent trials. Alcohol increased error rates overall, without affecting RTs. The overall activation spread along the ventral visual pathway into left temporal and prefrontal areas. Incongruous stimuli activated the anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal areas more than other stimuli, in agreement with their executive contributions. Alcohol decreased early activity in the visual areas (~90 ms) and it attenuated the anterior cingulate activation during conflict detection and response stages. Spectral analysis of the baseline period indicated alcohol-induced changes of power in lower frequency bands. Alcohol affects stimulus processing, conflict monitoring and response execution stages during the Stroop interference task. The resulting impairment of executive function may result in poor self-control, with an inability to refrain from drinking contributing to alcohol dependence. Conference: Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism , Dubrovnik, Croatia, 28 Mar - 1 Apr, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Neurocognition and Functional Connectivity Citation: Kovacevic S, Azma S, Sherfey J, Sheldon S, Irimia A and Marinkovic K (2010). Effects of alcohol on cognitive control: MEG analysis in temporal and spectral domains. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Biomag 2010 - 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.06.00420 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 09 Apr 2010; Published Online: 09 Apr 2010. * Correspondence: Sanja Kovacevic, Univ. California San Diego, Radiology, San Diego, United States, skovacevic@ucsd.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Sanja Kovacevic Sheeva Azma Jason Sherfey Sarah Sheldon Andrei Irimia Ksenija Marinkovic Google Sanja Kovacevic Sheeva Azma Jason Sherfey Sarah Sheldon Andrei Irimia Ksenija Marinkovic Google Scholar Sanja Kovacevic Sheeva Azma Jason Sherfey Sarah Sheldon Andrei Irimia Ksenija Marinkovic PubMed Sanja Kovacevic Sheeva Azma Jason Sherfey Sarah Sheldon Andrei Irimia Ksenija Marinkovic Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.