Executive Impairments in Binge Drinking: Evidence for a Specific Performance-Monitoring Difficulty during Alcohol-Related Processing.

This study evaluated inhibition and performance-monitoring abilities through the explicit processing of alcohol cues. Twenty-two binge drinkers (BD) and 22 control participants performed a speeded Go/No-Go task using pictures of alcohol and soft cans as Go and No-Go targets. This task measures inhibitory control and performance monitoring (i.e., task adjustment through errors and feedback processing) during the explicit processing of alcohol cues. Groups did not significantly differ regarding inhibition abilities. However, BD had poorer performance-monitoring abilities, reflected by a difficulty to adjust after errors, especially when these errors were related to alcohol cues. These findings suggest that the explicit processing of alcohol cues negatively impacts cognitive abilities among BD.