Drinking practices and neuropsychological test performance in sober male alcoholics and social drinkers

The relationships between alcohol intake (per occasion over time) and performance on neuropsychological tests, as they might be affected by anxiety and depression, were investigated in both an alcoholic (N = 60) and social drinking (N = 43) sample. alcoholics, a Maximum Quantity Frequency (MQF) of alcohol consumed over the previous six months was found to be the best predictor of an impairment index. Neither anxiety nor depression were correlated with test performance. In social drinkers, anxiety was the best predictor of performance on the impairment index; depression was not predictive. Neither MQF nor a commonly used measure of drinking behaviors, weighted quantity per occasion (QPO), significantly predicted performance in the social drinkers once anxiety was accounted for. The results support the assumption that in alcoholics the greater and more frequent the alcohol ingestion, the more the brain's functioning is disrupted, at least as reflected in neuropsychological test performance. Anxiety appears to play a major role in the test performance of social drinkers and should be monitored in future studies in this research area.