Neuropsychological deficits in alcoholic men in their mid thirties

The authors examined performances on 24 commonly used clinical neuropsychological tests for drug-free alcoholic men in their mid to late 30s either within 2--6 days of their last drink (N = 59) or between 14 and 31 days after their last drink (N = 20). Although mean scores were indicative of impairment on approximately half of the tests, no statistically significant overall difference in performance between individuals tested at these two time periods was observed. Recent and chronic alcohol consumption variables were found to interact with each other and with age and education in a nonlinear fashion in predicting neuropsychological performance. Increased consumption predicted decreased performance even on tests whose mean scores were in the normal range.