TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Detecting impairment: sensitive cognitive measures of dose-related acute alcohol intoxication
JO  - Journal of psychopharmacology
A1  - Cash, Catherine
A1  - Peacock, Amy
A1  - Barrington, Helen
A1  - Sinnett, Nicholas
A1  - Bruno, Raimondo
SP  - 436
EP  - 446
VL  - 29
IS  - 4
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0269-8811
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269881115570080
ID  - ref1
ER  -