Acute Dose of Alcohol on Psychomotor Performance

This report presents a review of the literature and reports the results of an investigation of the acute and hangover effects of ethanol on driving related skills, a s well as focussing on 'event-related potential' data recorded in a sub-group of subjects participating in the project. An earlier study had noted an impairment of a relatively simple reaction time task 3 hours after a dose of alcohol, and the current study was attempting to determine whether this effect would be observed in the more typical 'morning after' situation. There were no statistically significant linear or higher order trends in the doseiresponse relationship during the hangover session in any of the tasks employed in this s tudy . However this finding does not preclude the existence of a subjective 'hangover' effect nor that performance on other tasks is affected by hangover, for reasons which are discussed in the report.