Relationships between drinking quantity and frequency and behavioral and hippocampal BOLD responses during working memory performance involving allocentric spatial navigation in college students.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Quantity and frequency of drinking may be used to effectively quantify the severity of alcohol-use. Drinking-severity has been related to neurocognitive impairments in such domains as spatial working memory (SWM). Youth drinking has been associated with altered neurofunctional underpinnings of SWM. The current study examined the relationship between drinking-severity and SWM processing. METHODS:One-hundred-and-seventy college drinkers reported the maximum number of drinks in a 24?-h period in the last six-months (quantity) and average number of drinking weeks in the last six-months (frequency). All participants performed a virtual Morris Water Task during fMRI which included trials where the target platform was visible or hidden. RESULTS:Greater quantity was associated with reduced SWM-related activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (F(1, 167)?=?4.15, p?=?.04). Greater frequency was associated with reduced SWM-related activity in the hippocampus (F(1, 167)?=?4.34, p?=?0.039). Greater quantity was associated with longer search times (r?=?0.21, p?=?.005) and greater platforms found (r?=?0.19, p?=?.01) in VISIBLE trials. We did not find a relationship between drinking quantity or frequency and gender on SWM-related activity, although men found more platforms in both HIDDEN (F(1, 168)?=?11.7, p?=?0.0008) and VISIBLE (F(1, 168)?=?23.0, p?

SUBMITTER: Banz BC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7370814 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature