Maurage Pierre, Pesenti Mauro, Philippot Pierre, Joassin Frédéric, Campanella Salvatore
Cognitive Neurosciences Research Unit, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2009 Mar;34(2):111-8.
Episodic excessive alcohol consumption (i.e., binge drinking) is now considered to be a major public health problem, but whereas short-and long-term harmful consequences of this behaviour are clearly established at medical, social and cognitive levels, the cerebral correlates of these impairments are still unknown. Our study explores the midterm cerebral effects of binge-drinking behaviours among young adults.
We selected 2 groups of first-year university students with no history of drinking habits, paired for psychological and behavioural measures on the basis of their expected alcohol consumption during the forthcoming academic year. The binge drinker group expected to have high personal alcohol consumption, whereas the control group expected low consumption. We used a test-retest paradigm within a 9-month period (session 1 in September 2005, session 2 in May 2006). At each testing session, we recorded auditory event-related potentials while the participants performed an emotional valence judgment task.
There were no differences between the groups in behavioural or electrophysiological measures at baseline. After 9 months, the binge drinkers had significantly delayed latencies for all event-related potential components (P1, N2, P3b) of emotional auditory processing compared with the control group (p < 0.006), with no behavioural differences.
As the present study explored the electrophysiological correlates of binge drinking with an emotional task only, the results will have to be extended to other cognitive processes using various experimental tasks.
We report the first direct evidence that short-term binge drinking can produce marked cerebral dysfunction undetectable by behavioural measures alone. The observed latency abnormalities, similar to those observed in long-term alcoholism, constitute an electrophysiological marker of slowed cerebral activity associated with binge drinking.
间歇性过度饮酒（即暴饮）如今被视为一个主要的公共卫生问题，然而，尽管这种行为在医学、社会和认知层面的短期及长期有害后果已明确，但这些损害的大脑关联仍不为人知。我们的研究探讨了年轻人暴饮行为的中期大脑影响。
我们选取了两组无饮酒习惯史的大学一年级学生，根据他们在下一学年预期的酒精摄入量，在心理和行为测量方面进行配对。暴饮者组预期个人酒精摄入量高，而对照组预期摄入量低。我们在9个月期间采用了重测范式（2005年9月第1次测试，2006年5月第2次测试）。在每次测试时，当参与者执行情绪效价判断任务时，我们记录听觉事件相关电位。
在基线时，两组在行为或电生理测量方面没有差异。9个月后，与对照组相比，暴饮者在情绪听觉处理的所有事件相关电位成分（P1、N2、P3b）上的潜伏期显著延迟（p < 0.006），行为上没有差异。
由于本研究仅通过一项情绪任务探讨了暴饮的电生理关联，因此结果必须通过各种实验任务扩展到其他认知过程。
我们报告了首个直接证据，即短期暴饮可导致明显的大脑功能障碍，仅通过行为测量无法检测到。观察到的潜伏期异常与长期酗酒中观察到的异常相似，构成了与暴饮相关的大脑活动减慢的电生理标志。
