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Abstract
Language processing is commonly characterized by an event-related increase in theta power (4–7 Hz) in scalp EEG. Oscillatory brain dynamics underlying alcohol’s effects on language are poorly understood despite impairments on verbal tasks. To investigate how moderate alcohol intoxication modulates event-related theta activity during visual word processing, healthy social drinkers (N = 22, 11 females) participated in both alcohol (0.6 g/kg ethanol for men, 0.55 g/kg for women) and placebo conditions in a counterbalanced design. They performed a double-duty lexical decision task as they detected real words among non-words. An additional requirement to respond to all real words that also referred to animals induced response conflict. High density whole-head MEG signals and midline scalp EEG data were decomposed for each trial with Morlet wavelets. Each person’s reconstructed cortical surface was used to constrain noise-normalized distributed minimum norm inverse solutions for theta frequencies. Alcohol intoxication increased reaction time and marginally affected accuracy. The overall spatio-temporal pattern is consistent with the left-lateralized fronto-temporal activation observed in language studies applying time-domain analysis. Event-related theta power was sensitive to the two functions manipulated by the task. First, theta estimated to the left-lateralized fronto-temporal areas reflected lexical-semantic retrieval, indicating that this measure is well suited for investigating the neural basis of language functions. While alcohol attenuated theta power overall, it was particularly deleterious to semantic retrieval since it reduced theta to real words but not pseudowords. Second, a highly overlapping prefrontal network comprising lateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex was sensitive to decision conflict and was also affected by intoxication, in agreement with previous studies indicating that executive functions are especially vulnerable to alcohol intoxication.
Highlights
Long-term alcohol abuse and dependence result in neurobehavioral decline that is reflected in diverse changes in the brain and behavior as alcohol’s effects reach across cognitive, emotional, psychomotor, and social abilities (Oscar-Berman and Marinkovic, 2007)
Even though previous balanced placebo studies indicate that event-related potentials (ERPs) and autonomic physiological measures are influenced only by the pharmacological effects of alcohol rather than expectancy (Marinkovic et al, 2000; Marinkovic et al, 2001, 2004b), the effects of intoxication within the larger context of the social setting are likely a combination of these two influences and it needs to be taken into account
The earliest activity was seen in the occipital area at ∼130 ms and it did not differ among the conditions
Summary
Long-term alcohol abuse and dependence result in neurobehavioral decline that is reflected in diverse changes in the brain and behavior as alcohol’s effects reach across cognitive, emotional, psychomotor, and social abilities (Oscar-Berman and Marinkovic, 2007). Evidence obtained with event-related potentials (ERPs) indicates deficits in semantic processing in individuals with alcohol dependence (Nixon et al, 2002; Roopesh et al, 2010). Roopesh et al (2010) recorded ERPs from abstinent alcohol dependent individuals and compared the N400 evoked by semantically primed and unprimed words. The priming-induced attenuation of the N400 was much smaller in alcohol dependent participants compared to controls (Roopesh et al, 2010). More studies are needed, this evidence indicates that the deficits in semantic access and integration in chronic alcoholic cohorts may be a consequence of excessive drinking, with possible contributions from dispositional factors
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