Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-044, USA.
Alcohol Alcohol. 2009 Nov-Dec;44(6):586-93. doi: 10.1093/alcalc/agp051. Epub 2009 Sep 28.
Considerable laboratory research indicates that moderate doses of alcohol impair a broad range of skilled activities related to driving performance in young adults. Although laboratory studies show that the intensity of impairment is generally dependent on the blood alcohol concentration, some reviews of this literature suggest that women might be more sensitive to the impairing effects of alcohol than men. The present study tested this hypothesis.
Drawing on data from previous experiments in our laboratory, we compared men and women in terms of the degree to which a challenge dose of alcohol (0.65 g/kg) impaired their simulated driving performance and measures of three separate behavioral and cognitive functions important to driving performance: motor coordination, speed of information processing and information-processing capacity.
Alcohol significantly impaired all aspects of performance. Moreover, women displayed greater impairment than men on all behavioral tests and also reported higher levels of subjective intoxication compared with men.
Both biological and social-cultural factors have been implicated in gender differences in the behavioral responses to alcohol. The current evidence of heightened sensitivity to alcohol in women highlights the need for better understanding the biological and environmental factors underlying this gender difference.
大量实验室研究表明，适量饮酒会损害年轻人与驾驶表现相关的广泛技能活动。尽管实验室研究表明，损害的强度通常取决于血液中的酒精浓度，但对该文献的一些综述表明，女性对酒精的损害作用可能比男性更敏感。本研究检验了这一假设。
利用我们实验室之前的实验数据，我们比较了男性和女性在酒精挑战剂量（0.65g/kg）对其模拟驾驶表现和三个对驾驶表现至关重要的行为和认知功能的测量指标的影响程度：运动协调、信息处理速度和信息处理能力。
酒精显著损害了所有方面的表现。此外，女性在所有行为测试中表现出比男性更大的损害，并且与男性相比，女性报告的主观醉酒程度更高。
生物和社会文化因素都与酒精对行为的反应中的性别差异有关。女性对酒精更敏感的现有证据突出了需要更好地理解导致这种性别差异的生物学和环境因素。
