@article{ref1,
title="Detecting impairment: sensitive cognitive measures of dose-related acute alcohol intoxication",
journal="Journal of psychopharmacology",
year="2015",
author="Cash, Catherine and Peacock, Amy and Barrington, Helen and Sinnett, Nicholas and Bruno, Raimondo",
volume="29",
number="4",
pages="436-446",
abstract="The cognitive impairment that results from acute alcohol intoxication is associated with considerable safety risks. Other psychoactive substances, such as medications, pose a similar risk to road and workplace safety. However, there is currently no legal limit for operating vehicles or working while experiencing drug-related impairment. The current study sought to identify a brief cognitive task sensitive to a meaningful degree of impairment from acute alcohol intoxication to potentially stand as a reference from which to quantify impairment from other similar substances. A placebo-controlled single-blind crossover design was employed to determine the relative sensitivity of four commonly-administered cognitive tasks (Compensatory Tracking Task, Digit Symbol Substitution Test, Brief Stop Signal Task and Inspection Time Task) to alcohol-related impairment in male social drinkers at ~0.05% ascending breath alcohol concentration (BrAC), ~0.08% peak BrAC and 0.05% descending BrAC. The Inspection Time Task was identified as the most sensitive task, detecting a medium to large magnitude increase in impairment (g ≈ 0.60) at 0.05% ascending and descending BrAC, and a large magnitude effect size (g = 0.80) at 0.08% peak BrAC. The remaining tasks failed to demonstrate sensitivity to dose-dependent and limb-dependent changes in alcohol-induced impairment. The Inspection Time Task was deemed the most sensitive task for screening alcohol-related impairment based on the present results. Confirmation of equivalence with other drug-related impairment and sensitivity to alcohol-induced impairment in real-world settings should be established in future research.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0269-8811",
doi="10.1177/0269881115570080",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269881115570080"
}