Working Memory Impairments in Alcohol-Dependent Participants Without Clinical Amnesia.
Background: The delayed alternation (DA) task is highly sensitive to the deficits of nonhuman animals with alcohol-related brain damage. DA is thought to measure working memory which serves as a temporary store for processing of information. However, performance on this type of task has only been in...
| Publicado en: | Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 185 - 192 |
|---|---|
| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2001
|
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=91183951&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 91183951 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 01456008 IQE jtl: Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research issn: 01456008 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: 2001 vid: 25 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell place: Malden, Massachusetts artinfo: ui: 91183951 91183951 10.1097/00000374-200102000-00005 91183951 ppf: 185 ppct: 7 formats: tig: atl: Working Memory Impairments in Alcohol-Dependent Participants Without Clinical Amnesia. aug: au: Ambrose, Margaret L. Bowden, Stephen C. Whelan, Greg affil: School of Behavioural Science (MA, SCB), University of Melbourne, Parkville; Department of Neurosciences (SCB), St. Vincent's Hospital, Fitzroy; Department of Drug and Alcohol Studies (GW), St. Vincent's Hospital, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia. sug: ab: Background: The delayed alternation (DA) task is highly sensitive to the deficits of nonhuman animals with alcohol-related brain damage. DA is thought to measure working memory which serves as a temporary store for processing of information. However, performance on this type of task has only been investigated in alcohol-dependent humans with severe cognitive deficits. The aim of the current study was to e-plore the validity of DA as a test sensitive to alcohol-related brain damage by manipulating storage and processing components in three versions of the task. It was hypothesized that alcohol-dependent people would perform worse than control participants and that their deficits would be more pronounced in DA versions with ma-imal working memory demands. Methods: A sample of 12 alcohol-dependent participants without Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome was compared with a sample of 12 nonalcohol-dependent controls on three versions of DA. These versions, in order of increasing working memory demand, were single alternation (LR), double alternation (LLRR), and asymmetric alternation (LRRR). DA was administered on a personal computer and performance measured by the number of trials taken to reach criterion. Results: Alcohol-dependent participants, compared with the control participants, took more trials to reach learning criterion on DA on all versions when analyzed together ( p= 0.002). Performance on DA was also found to deteriorate with increased working memory demands in both groups of participants ( p < 0.001). However, the deficits of alcohol-dependent participants were most pronounced on the DA task with moderate (LLRR) as opposed to extreme (LRRR) working memory demands. Conclusions: The results indicate that both storage and processing demands are necessary for task performance and demonstrate sensitivity of DA to alcohol-related brain injury. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|