Drinking and future thinking: acute effects of alcohol on prospective memory and future simulation.
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.


OBJECTIVE
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.
Paraskevaides
Theadora
T
Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Research Department of Clinical, Health and Educational Psychology, University College London, Gower St., London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
Morgan
Celia J A
CJ
Leitz
Julie R
JR
Bisby
James A
JA
Rendell
Peter G
PG
Curran
H Valerie
HV
D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000523:psychology; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D003071:Cognition / Q000187:drug effects*; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D000431:Ethanol / Q000009:adverse effects*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects*; D013850:Thinking / Q000187:drug effects*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants; D000431:Ethanol