Premium
Alcohol Intoxication Impairs Mesopic Rod and Cone Temporal Processing in Social Drinkers
Author(s) -
Zhuang Xiaohua,
Kang Para,
King Andrea,
Cao Dingcai
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/acer.12833
Subject(s) - mesopic vision , illuminance , stimulus (psychology) , audiology , placebo , alcohol , optics , psychology , medicine , retina , photopic vision , physics , chemistry , cognitive psychology , biochemistry , alternative medicine , pathology
Background Alcohol‐related driving accidents and fatalities occur most frequently at nighttime and at dawn, that is, a mesopic lighting condition in which visual processing depends on both rod and cone photoreceptors. The temporal functions of the rod and cone pathways are critical for driving in this lighting condition. However, how alcohol influences the temporal functions in the rod and cone pathways at mesopic light levels is inconclusive. To address this, this study investigated whether an acute intoxicating dose of alcohol impairs rod‐ and/or cone‐mediated critical fusion frequency ( CFF ; the lowest frequency of which an intermittent or flickering light stimulus is perceived as steady). Methods In Experiment I, we measured the CFF s for 3 types of visual stimuli (rod stimulus alone, cone stimulus alone, and the mixture of both stimuli types), under 3 illuminant light levels (dim illuminance: 2 Td; low illuminance: 20 Td; and medium illuminance: 80 Td) in moderate–heavy social drinkers before and after they consumed an intoxicating dose of alcohol (0.8 g/kg) compared with a placebo beverage. In Experiment II , we examined whether the illuminance level (dark vs. light) of the visual area surrounding the test stimuli alters alcohol's effect on the temporal processing of rods and cones. Results The results showed that compared with placebo, alcohol significantly reduced CFF s of all stimulus types at all illuminance levels. Furthermore, alcohol intoxication produced a larger impairment on rod‐pathway‐mediated CFF s under light versus dark surround. Conclusions These results indicate that alcohol intake slows down rod and cone‐pathway‐mediated temporal processing. Further research may elucidate whether this effect may play a role in alcohol‐related injury and accidents, which often occur under low‐light conditions.