TRIAZOLAM-INDUCED CHANGES IN ALCOHOLIC THOUGHT PROCESSES

This study was designed to examine and contrast cognitive effects (exp licit memory and access to semantic knowledge) of the benzodiazepine H alcion (triazolam) in ten normal volunteers and ten cognitively unimpa ired detoxified alcoholics. The two groups were indistinguishable from one another under placebo conditions on all measures of cognitive fun ctioning. Under Halcion test conditions (0.375 mg PO), both groups wer e about equally impaired in their recall of to-be-remembered informati on. However, alcoholics, were more likely to recall information that t hey were not asked to remember (intrusion errors) on all measures of e xplicit remembering. Alcoholics also generated relatively uncommon (lo w frequency) responses from semantic memory, rather than common, categ orically related associations in response to stimuli such as types of vegetables, flowers, and fruit following the administration of Halcion , but were not different from normal volunteers in the types of respon ses generated under placebo conditions. These findings suggest that a drug challenge that simulates many of the effects of acute alcohol adm inistration induces alcoholics to think and remember differently (qual itatively) from normal volunteers.