Effects of moderate doses of ethyl alcohol on cerebral lateralization of language and on hand movements. I: A dual-task paradigm study.

Cerebral lateralization for linguistic functions has been assessed by means of a dual-task, verbal-manual, paradigm (finger tapping) in 16 monolingual right-handed non-alcoholic adult male subjects after the administration of a moderate dose of ethyl alcohol (0.6 g/kg; alcoholemia > 80 mg/dl). No significant modification of hemispheric asymmetries for linguistic functions was found. Moreover, ethyl alcohol tended to affect right-hand motor function during silent tapping, while leaving left-hand performance almost unchanged.