Mahedy Liam, Field Matt, Gage Suzanne, Hammerton Gemma, Heron Jon, Hickman Matt, Munafò Marcus R
Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Oakfield Grove, Bristol BS8 2BN, UK.
Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Bedford Street South, Liverpool L69 7ZA, UK.
Alcohol Alcohol. 2018 May 1;53(3):251-258. doi: 10.1093/alcalc/agx113.
The study aimed to examine the association between adolescent alcohol use and working memory (WM) using a large population sample.
Data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children were used to investigate the association between alcohol use at age 15 years and WM 3 years later, assessed using the N-back task (N ~ 3300). A three-category ordinal variable captured mutually exclusive alcohol groupings ranging in order of severity (i.e. low alcohol users, frequent drinkers and frequent/binge drinkers). Differential dropout was accounted for using multiple imputation and inverse probability weighting. Adjustment was made for potential confounders.
There was evidence of an association between frequent/binge drinking (compared to the low alcohol group) and poorer performance on the 3-back task after adjusting for sociodemographic confounding variables, WM at age 11 years, and experience of a head injury/unconsciousness before age 11 years (β = -0.23, 95% CI = -0.37 to -0.09, P = 0.001). However, this association was attenuated (β = -0.12, 95% CI = -0.27 to 0.03, P = 0.11) when further adjusted for baseline measures of weekly cigarette tobacco and cannabis use. Weaker associations were found for the less demanding 2-back task. We found no evidence to suggest frequent drinking was associated with performance on either task.
We found weak evidence of an association between sustained heavy alcohol use in mid-adolescence and impaired WM 3 years later. Although we cannot fully rule out the possibility of reverse causation, several potential confounding variables were included to address the directionality of the relationship between WM and alcohol use problems.
本研究旨在使用大规模人群样本检验青少年饮酒与工作记忆（WM）之间的关联。
来自雅芳亲子纵向研究的数据用于调查15岁时的饮酒情况与3年后的工作记忆之间的关联，工作记忆通过N-back任务进行评估（N≈3300）。一个三类有序变量捕捉了按严重程度排序的相互排斥的饮酒分组（即低饮酒者、频繁饮酒者和频繁/暴饮者）。使用多重填补和逆概率加权法对差异失访进行了处理。对潜在的混杂因素进行了调整。
在调整了社会人口学混杂变量、11岁时的工作记忆以及11岁前头部受伤/昏迷经历后，有证据表明频繁/暴饮（与低饮酒组相比）与3-back任务表现较差之间存在关联（β=-0.23，95%置信区间=-0.37至-0.09，P=0.001）。然而，在进一步调整每周香烟和大麻使用的基线测量值后，这种关联减弱了（β=-0.12，95%置信区间=-0.27至0.03，P=0.11）。对于要求较低的2-back任务，发现的关联较弱。我们没有发现证据表明频繁饮酒与任何一项任务的表现有关。
我们发现有微弱证据表明青少年中期持续大量饮酒与3年后工作记忆受损之间存在关联。尽管我们不能完全排除反向因果关系的可能性，但纳入了几个潜在的混杂变量以解决工作记忆与饮酒问题之间关系的方向性。
