Mental rehearsal of a task before or after ethanol: tolerance facilitating effects

Two groups of six male social drinkers learned a psychomotor skill task and then drank the same dose of ethanol (0.62 g/kg) on each of five sessions. Sessions 1 and 5 provided pre-treatment and post-treatment measures of task performance under ethanol. During treatment sessions 2, 3 and 4, one group (MRBD) mentally rehearsed the task before drinking and the other group (MRAD) mentally rehearsed the task after drinking. On the post-treatment session, the MRAD group was significantly less impaired (i.e. more tolerant) than the MRBD group. Thus, mental rehearsal of a task under ethanol facilitates the development of tolerance to the behavioral effects of the drug.