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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Disruption of Frontal Lobe Neural Synchrony During Cognitive Control by Alcohol Intoxication
Published on: February 6, 2019
Global impairment of prospective memory following acute alcohol
Julie R Leitz1, Celia J A Morgan, James A Bisby
1Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Clinical Psychology, University College London, Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, UK. julieleitz@gmail.com
Rationale:
Whilst the deleterious effects of alcohol on retrospective remembering have been widely documented, no study has yet objectively determined alcohol's effects on prospective memory (PM)--remembering to do something in the future.
Objectives:
With this aim, the present study determined the acute effects of alcohol upon PM using a laboratory measure that simulates the PM tasks in everyday life--'Virtual Week'--both (a) in its standard form with regular, irregular, event-based and time-based PM tasks; and (b) an adapted version which enabled exploration of how future event simulation at encoding impacted upon subsequent PM.
Methods:
Forty healthy volunteers were administered 0.6 g/kg ethanol or a matched placebo in a double-blind fashion and completed the two versions of Virtual Week along with prose recall (to tap retrospective memory) and an executive function task.
Results:
Alcohol acutely produced global impairments across all (regular, irregular, event-based and time-based) PM tasks. It also produced impairments of episodic memory which positively correlated with PM performance of irregular tasks. Future-event simulation tended to enhance PM in the placebo but not in the alcohol group.
Conclusions:
These findings on an objective measure of PM suggest that 4-5 units of alcohol will compromise PM abilities in everyday life.
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