@article{ref1,
title="Acute alcohol decreases performance of an instrumental response to avoid aversive consequences in social drinkers",
journal="Psychopharmacology",
year="2009",
author="Loeber, Sabine and Duka, T.",
volume="205",
number="4",
pages="577-587",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Recent studies demonstrated that alcohol impairs inhibitory control of behavioural responses. AIMS: We questioned whether alcohol via its disinhibiting effects would also impair the inhibition of an instrumental avoidance response in the presence of a safety signal. DESIGN: Thirty-six moderate social drinkers were randomly allocated to receiving either alcohol (0.8 g/kg) or placebo before performing an instrumental avoidance procedure. White noise of 102 db was used as aversive outcome presented at a variable interval schedule in S+ trials, while no noise was presented in S- trials. An instrumental response (repeated space bar presses to avoid the noise presented at a variable interval) abolished the noise. The Stop Signal task and the affective Go/No-Go task were administered as inhibitory control tasks. RESULTS: Alcohol did not change the avoidance response rate in the presence of S- (safety signal). However, participants under alcohol performed the avoidance response to a lower extent than placebo subjects in S+ trials. Alcohol impaired performance in the Stop Signal task and increased the number of commission errors in the affective Go/No-Go task. Conditioned attentional and emotional responses to the S+ as well as knowledge of stimulus-response outcome contingencies were not affected by alcohol. CONCLUSIONS: Acute alcohol may decrease the motivation to avoid negative consequences and thus might contribute to risky behaviour and binge drinking.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0033-3158",
doi="10.1007/s00213-009-1565-9",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1565-9"
}