• Energy Research

BackgroundEmerging adulthood is a critical neurodevelopment period in which extreme drinking has a potentially pronounced neurotoxic effect. Therefore, extreme drinking, even a single episode, could be particularly harmful to the developing brain’s structure. Relatedly, heavy alcohol use in emerging adults has been associated with structural brain damage, especially in the corpus callosum. However, it is unclear whether and how much a single extreme drinking episode would affect brain morphometry.MethodsFor the first time in the literature, the current study prospectively examined the impact of an extreme drinking episode (i.e., twenty‐first birthday celebration) on the brain morphometry of emerging adults immediately following their birthday celebration (n = 50) and approximately 5 weeks post–birthday celebration (n = 29).ResultsWe found evidence that a single extreme drinking episode was associated with structural changes immediately post–birthday celebration. Specifically, higher twenty‐first birthday estimated blood‐alcohol concentration was associated with decreased volume of the posterior and central corpus callosum immediately post–birthday celebration. This extreme drinking episode was not associated with further structural changes, or recovery, 5 weeks post–twenty‐first birthday celebration.ConclusionsOverall, results suggest that a single episode of heavy drinking in emerging adulthood may be associated with immediate structural changes of the corpus callosum. Thus, emerging adulthood, which is characterized by high rates of extreme drinking, could be a critical period for targeted prevention and intervention.

Rate of alcohol consumption, the speed with which people drink, has been linked to a range of outcomes, including alcohol use disorder symptoms and increased positive affect. However, minimal work has identified who is most likely to drink at elevated rates. Impulsivity is associated with increased attention to positive reinforcers specifically (e.g., positive affect). We therefore examined whether people higher in trait impulsivity engage in faster consumption during drinking episodes.Participants were current drinkers (N = 113; 54 people with borderline personality disorder [BPD], a disorder that involves elevated impulsivity, and 59 community people) who completed a 21-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol. Multilevel models of drinking episodes (Nobservations = 3,444) examined whether self-reported trait impulsivity, measured at baseline, was associated with faster rise in estimated blood alcohol concentration (eBAC) at each follow-up period.All UPPS sub-scales were associated with faster rise in eBAC across a drinking episode. In a multivariate model including all sub-scales as simultaneous predictors, sensation seeking and (lack of) perseverance were independently positively associated with rate of consumption. Additional analyses indicated that greater negative urgency and sensation seeking were associated with faster rises in eBAC in participants with BPD, relative to community comparisons.In a sample that captured a wide spectrum of impulsivity, greater impulsivity was associated with drinking alcohol at a faster rate. People higher in sensation seeking and (lack of) perseverance may be prone to drink at faster rates out of a desire to maximize the hedonic effects of alcohol.This study finds that people who are more impulsive tend to drink alcohol faster, putting them at greater risk for negative consequences. This may explain, in part, why impulsivity is linked to experiencing alcohol-related problems.

Twenty-first birthday drinking is characterized by extreme alcohol consumption. Accumulating evidence suggests that high-dose bingeing is related to structural brain changes and cognitive deficits. This is particularly problematic in the transition from adolescence to adulthood when the brain is still maturing, elevating the brain’s sensitivity to the acute effects of alcohol intoxication. Heavy drinking is associated with reduced structural integrity in the hippocampus and corpus callosum and is accompanied by cognitive deficits. However, there is little research examining changes in the human brain related to discrete heavy drinking episodes. The present study investigated whether alcohol exposure during a 21st birthday celebration would result in changes to white matter microstructure by utilizing Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) measures and a quasi-experimental design. By examining structural changes in the brain from pre- to post-celebration within subjects (N = 49) prospectively, we were able to more directly observe brain changes following an extreme drinking episode. Region of interest analyses demonstrated increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the posterior fornix (p < 0.0001) and in the body of the corpus callosum (p = 0.0029) from pre- to post-birthday celebration. These results suggest acute white matter damage to the fornix and corpus callosum following an extreme drinking episode, which is especially problematic during continued neurodevelopment. Twenty-first birthday drinking may, therefore, be considered an important target event for preventing acute brain injury in young adults.

Background: Despite its ubiquity, hangover has received remarkably little systematic attention in alcohol research. This may be due in part to the lack of a standard measure of hangover symptoms that cleanly taps the physiologic and subjective effects commonly experienced the morning after drinking. In the present study, we developed and evaluated a new scale, the Hangover Symptoms Scale (HSS), to potentially fill this void.Methods: Participants were 1230 currently drinking college students (62% women, 91% Caucasian). They were administered a self‐report inventory in which they reported the frequency of occurrence of 13 different hangover symptoms during the past 12 months. Participants also reported their history of alcohol involvement, alcohol‐related problems, and family history of alcohol‐related problems.Results: On average, participants experienced 5 out of 13 different hangover symptoms in the past year; the three most common symptoms were feeling extremely thirsty/dehydrated, feeling more tired than usual, and headache. Higher scores on the HSS were significantly positively associated with the frequency of drinking and getting drunk and the typical quantity of alcohol consumed when drinking, a personal history of alcohol‐related problems, and a family history of alcohol‐related problems. After controlling for sex differences in alcohol involvement, women had higher scores on the HSS than men.Conclusions: The HSS appears to capture a reasonably valid set of adjectives describing common hangover effects. It is hoped that the availability of a brief, valid hangover assessment such as the HSS will encourage further study of hangover's frequency, correlates, and consequences. Future research is needed to explore the performance of a re‐worded HSS in laboratory settings, which may help bridge the gap between laboratory and survey investigations of hangover.

Tobacco and alcohol are frequently used together, and this may be partly explained by a distinct profile of subjective effects associated with co-administration. Ecological momentary assessment studies have examined effects of naturally occurring co-use, but, to date, have not assessed differing effects as alcohol levels rise and fall.The objective of the study was to describe subjective states and appraisals of cigarette and alcohol effects reported during the entirety of real-world drinking episodes.Currently-smoking frequent drinkers (N = 255) carried electronic diaries for 21 days. Analyses focused on reports made during 2,046 drinking episodes. Signaled prompts intensively oversampled moments in the hours following consumption of the first drink in an episode. Multilevel regression analyses were used to predict ratings of buzz, dizziness, excitement, and sluggishness as a function of person-level and contextual covariates, estimated blood alcohol concentration (eBAC) level, ascending vs. descending eBAC, smoking, and their interactions. Appraisals of cigarette and alcohol effects were also examined within this framework.Buzz, excitement, and pleasure from alcohol and cigarettes were prominent features of real-world drinking episodes. Smoking was associated with enhanced buzz and excitement when eBAC was high and descending. Smoking slightly accentuated the relation between eBAC and ratings of drinking pleasure among women, but this relation was somewhat weakened by smoking among men.Smoking during drinking episodes may be partly explained by a persistence of stimulant alcohol effects beyond the blood alcohol concentration peak. Acute effects of nicotine and tobacco use on the descending limb deserve further scrutiny in experimental alcohol challenge research.

AbstractAimsThis study used a behavioral approach‐avoidance task including images of alcoholic beverages to test whether low sensitivity to alcohol (LS) is a phenotypical marker of a dispositional propensity to attribute bottom‐up incentive value to naturally conditioned alcohol cues.Design, setting and participantsExperimental study with a measured individual difference variable at a university psychology laboratory in Missouri, MO, USA. Participants were 178 emerging adults (aged 18–20 years) varying in self‐reported sensitivity to alcohol's acute effects.MeasurementsParticipants completed the alcohol approach‐avoidance task while behavior (response time; RT) and the electroencephalogram (EEG) were recorded. Stimulus‐locked event‐related potentials (ERPs) provided indices of integrated (top‐down and bottom‐up) stimulus incentive value (P3 amplitude) and conflict between top‐down task demands and bottom‐up response propensities (N450 amplitude).FindingsLinear mixed models showed faster RT for ‘alcohol‐approach’ relative to ‘alcohol‐avoid’ trials for lower‐sensitivity (LS) [meanD ± standard errorD (MD ± SED) = 29.51 ± 9.74 ms, t(328) = 3.03, P = 0.003] but not higher‐sensitivity (HS) individuals (MD ± SED = 2.27 ± 9.33 ms, t(328) = 0.243, P = 0.808). There was enhanced N450 amplitude (response conflict) for alcohol‐avoid relative to alcohol‐approach trials for LS participants (MD ± SED = 0.811 ± 0.198 μV, Z = 4.108, P < 0.001) and enhanced N450 amplitude for alcohol‐approach relative to alcohol‐avoid for HS participants (MD ± SED = 0.419 ± 0.188 μV, Z = 2.235, P = 0.025). There was also enhanced P3 amplitude for alcohol‐approach relative to alcohol‐avoid for LS (MD ± SED = 0.825 ± 0.204 μV, Z = 4.045, P < 0.001) but not HS (MD ± SED = 0.013 ± 0.194 μV, Z = 0.068, P = 0.946).ConclusionsFindings from a human laboratory study appear to support the notion that low sensitivity to alcohol indexes a propensity to attribute bottom–up incentive value to naturally conditioned alcohol cues.

AbstractNeural measures of alcohol cue incentive salience have been associated with retrospective reports of riskier alcohol use behaviour and subjective response profiles. This study tested whether the P3 event‐related potential (ERP) elicited by alcohol‐related cues (ACR‐P3) can forecast alcohol use and craving during real‐world drinking episodes. Participants (N = 262; Mage = 19.53; 56% female) completed a laboratory task in which they viewed images of everyday objects (Neutral), non‐alcohol drinks (NonAlc) and alcohol beverages (Alc) while EEG was recorded and then completed a 21‐day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) protocol in which they recorded alcohol craving and consumption. Anthropometrics were used to derive estimated blood alcohol concentration (eBAC) throughout drinking episodes. Multilevel modelling indicated positive associations between P3 amplitudes elicited by all stimuli and within‐episode alcohol use measures (e.g., eBAC, cumulative drinks). Focal follow‐up analyses indicated a positive association between AlcP3 amplitude and eBAC within episodes: Larger AlcP3 was associated with a steeper rise in eBAC. This association was robust to controlling for the association between NonAlcP3 and eBAC. AlcP3 also was positively associated with episode‐level measures (e.g., max drinks, max eBAC). There were no associations between any P3 variables and EMA‐based craving measures. Thus, individual differences in neural measures of alcohol cue incentive salience appear to predict the speed and intensity of alcohol consumption but not reports of craving during real‐world alcohol use episodes.

Hangover may be related to propensity to develop alcohol use disorders (AUDs). However, the etiological role, if any, played by hangover in AUD is unclear. From a motivational perspective, hangover can be construed as either a deterrent to future alcohol consumption or a setting event for negative reinforcement that could promote deviant drinking practices (e.g., "hair-of-the-dog" drinking). Hangover could be related to AUD risk even if it does not play a direct role in promoting or inhibiting near-term drinking. For example, measures of hangover might serve as symptoms of AUD or as markers of individual differences that more directly account for AUD risk. Empirical evidence (though usually indirect) exists to support contentions that hangover is related to both risk for and protection from AUD. In this article, we briefly address variation in assessment strategies in existing hangover research because measures of hangover frequency and hangover susceptibility may prove to have different correlates. Next, we review the existing, limited evidence on relations between hangover and AUD risk. Finally, we sketch a variety of theoretically-informed hypotheses that might help delineate productive lines of inquiry for this emerging field.