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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
Relationships between drinking quantity and frequency and behavioral and hippocampal BOLD responses during working
Barbara C Banz1, Patrick D Worhunsky2, Brian P Pittman2
1Developmental Neurocognitive Driving Simulation Research Center (DrivSim Lab), Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, 464 Congress Avenue, Suite 272, New Haven, CT, 06519, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, 1 Church Street, 7thFloor, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA.
Background:
Quantity and frequency of drinking may be used to effectively quantify the severity of alcohol-use. Drinking-severity has been related to neurocognitive impairments in such domains as spatial working memory (SWM). Youth drinking has been associated with altered neurofunctional underpinnings of SWM. The current study examined the relationship between drinking-severity and SWM processing.
Methods:
One-hundred-and-seventy college drinkers reported the maximum number of drinks in a 24 -h period in the last six-months (quantity) and average number of drinking weeks in the last six-months (frequency). All participants performed a virtual Morris Water Task during fMRI which included trials where the target platform was visible or hidden.
Results:
Greater quantity was associated with reduced SWM-related activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (F(1, 167) = 4.15, p = .04). Greater frequency was associated with reduced SWM-related activity in the hippocampus (F(1, 167) = 4.34, p = 0.039). Greater quantity was associated with longer search times (r = 0.21, p = .005) and greater platforms found (r = 0.19, p = .01) in VISIBLE trials. We did not find a relationship between drinking quantity or frequency and gender on SWM-related activity, although men found more platforms in both HIDDEN (F(1, 168) = 11.7, p = 0.0008) and VISIBLE (F(1, 168) = 23.0, p < .0001) trials compared to women.
Conclusions:
Altered SWM-related hippocampal function relating to alcohol use in young adults raises questions regarding the impact on young adult health and the nature of the findings. Future studies should examine whether these differences may lead to cognitive deficits later in life.
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