IMPAIRMENT OF SEMANTIC AND FIGURAL MEMORY BY ACUTE ETHANOL - AGE-DEPENDENT EFFECTS

Alcohol drinking is prevalent among young adults in the U.S. Moreover, heavy drinking is acknowledged by a substantial percentage of young a dults in both college and military subpopulations, despite the known c ognitive demands associated with these endeavors and the cognitive imp airments associated with alcohol usage. We assessed the acute effects of ethanol (0.6 g/kg) on the acquisition of both semantic and figural memory in a sample of young adults from 21 to 29 years of age using a repeated-measures, placebo-controlled experimental design. Ethanol sig nificantly impaired memory acquisition in both domains. In addition, t he effect of ethanol on three of the four memory measures assessed was dependent on the age of the subjects. Subjects in a young subgroup (2 1 to 24 years of age) were significantly more impaired in memory measu res than those in the subgroup that was 25 to 29 years of age. These r esults indicate a divergence of the potency of ethanol against memory acquisition across a narrow age range in early adulthood. Whereas thes e data are preliminary, and should be generalized cautiously, they are also consistent with a growing literature using animal models that in dicates that acute ethanol is a more potent antagonist of memory and m emory-related hippocampal activity in adolescent animals compared with adults.