Psychopharmacology
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Alcohol affects the emotional modulation of cognitive control: an event-related brain potential study.
The present study aimed to determine whether alcohol affects the emotional modulation of cognitive control and its underlying neural mechanisms, which is pivotal to an understanding of the socially maladaptive behaviors frequently seen in alcohol-intoxicated individuals. ⋯ These results suggest that alcohol-intoxicated individuals need to effortfully activate more cognitive resources during the early inhibition process in order to regulate a response than controls. Moreover, alcohol affected the emotional modulation of both response inhibition and execution in the later stages of cognitive control. Alcohol dampened emotional responsiveness, which may restrict the availability of attentional resources for cognitive control. Yet, these findings may underlie the lack of control in alcohol-intoxicated individuals when faced with emotionally or socially challenging situations.