Alcohol and cognitive control: implications for regulation of behavior during response conflict
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Disruption of Frontal Lobe Neural Synchrony During Cognitive Control by Alcohol Intoxication
Published on: February 6, 2019
John J Curtin1, Bradley A Fairchild
1Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, USA. jjcurtin@facstaff.wisc.edu
Abstract:
Alcohol intoxication often leads to dysregulated behavior in contexts characterized by conflict between prepotent response tendencies and incompatible alternative responses. Recent research has identified 2 components of an anterior executive attention system that are essential for adaptive behavior when response conflict exists. Event-related potential (ERP) measures of evaluative and regulative cognitive control were collected to determine if impaired executive attention was responsible for observed behavior deficits when intoxicated. Intoxicated participants displayed task performance deficits on incongruent color-naming trials relative to sober controls. Alcohol did not affect P3 magnitude/latency, indicating that timing and integrity of stimulus evaluation remained intact. In contrast, alcohol did reduce frontal components of ERP that index evaluative and regulative cognitive control processes.
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