BACKGROUND: It has recently been shown that acute alcohol globally impairs 'prospective memory' (PM)-remembering to do something in the future (Leitz et al. in Psychopharmacology 205:379-387, 2009). In healthy, sober individuals, simulating future events at encoding enhances PM performance. AIMS: We therefore aimed to determine if future event simulation could attenuate the impairing effects of acute alcohol on PM. METHODS: Using a double-blind independent group design, 32 healthy volunteers were administered a 0.6-g/kg dose of ethanol or matched placebo. PM performance was assessed using a behavioural task, the 'Virtual Week', which was adapted to enable future event simulation in both remote and recent contexts. Episodic memory was indexed with a source memory task and planning with the Tower of London task. RESULTS: We replicated the finding of Leitz et al. that acute alcohol consumption impairs prospective memory for event-based tasks. Future event simulation significantly improved PM performance on these tasks and eliminated the PM deficit caused by acute alcohol consumption. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first evidence that future event simulation can overcome alcohol-induced deficits in prospective memory and may have important clinical implications for the rehabilitation of chronic alcohol users.
RCT Entities:
BACKGROUND: It has recently been shown that acute alcohol globally impairs 'prospective memory' (PM)-remembering to do something in the future (Leitz et al. in Psychopharmacology 205:379-387, 2009). In healthy, sober individuals, simulating future events at encoding enhances PM performance. AIMS: We therefore aimed to determine if future event simulation could attenuate the impairing effects of acute alcohol on PM. METHODS: Using a double-blind independent group design, 32 healthy volunteers were administered a 0.6-g/kg dose of ethanol or matched placebo. PM performance was assessed using a behavioural task, the 'Virtual Week', which was adapted to enable future event simulation in both remote and recent contexts. Episodic memory was indexed with a source memory task and planning with the Tower of London task. RESULTS: We replicated the finding of Leitz et al. that acute alcohol consumption impairs prospective memory for event-based tasks. Future event simulation significantly improved PM performance on these tasks and eliminated the PM deficit caused by acute alcohol consumption. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first evidence that future event simulation can overcome alcohol-induced deficits in prospective memory and may have important clinical implications for the rehabilitation of chronic alcohol users.
Authors: Anthony Lequerica; Lisa Rapport; Bradley N Axelrod; Kaja Telmet; R Douglas Whitman Journal: J Clin Exp Neuropsychol Date: 2002-12 Impact factor: 2.475
Authors: Mark A McDaniel; Melissa J Guynn; Gilles O Einstein; Jennifer Breneiser Journal: J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn Date: 2004-05 Impact factor: 3.051
Authors: Ahmed A Moustafa; Alejandro N Morris; Jean Louis Nandrino; Błażej Misiak; Monika Szewczuk-Bogusławska; Dorota Frydecka; Mohamad El Haj Journal: Exp Brain Res Date: 2018-08-11 Impact factor: 1.972
Authors: Sarah E Snider; Harshawardhan U Deshpande; Jonathan M Lisinski; Mikhail N Koffarnus; Stephen M LaConte; Warren K Bickel Journal: Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging Date: 2017-11-21
Authors: Marika P Faytell; Katie L Doyle; Sylvie Naar-King; Angulique Y Outlaw; Sharon L Nichols; Kaitlin B Casaletto; Steven Paul Woods Journal: Neuropsychol Rehabil Date: 2015-12-21 Impact factor: 2.868