Effects of a low alcohol dose on static balance, fine motor activity, and mental performance

The effects of a single low alcohol dose (men 0.54 g and women 0.44 g alcohol per kg body weight) were measured by static balance, fine motor activity, and mental performance. In 10 healthy volunteers balance was registered by a temporally and spatially high resolution platform measuring the center of foot pressure and a three-dimensional coordination measurement system. Fine motor activity and mental performance were tested with selected experiments from the NES2 (Neurobehavioral Evaluation System) neuropsychological test battery. Changes of bipedal and monopedal balance could be detected after the alcohol consumption. Neither the fine motor activity nor the mental performance test demonstrated significant effects. Thus, the static balance test proved to be a sensitive, fast, and atraumatic method to identify slight neurotoxic disturbances.