Acute effects of alcohol on the development of intrusive memories
Abstract
Rationale Post-traumatic stress disorder is characterised by repeated intrusive imagery of the traumatic event. Despite alcohol's impairing effect on memory and frequent involvement in real-life trauma, virtually nothing is known of the interaction between alcohol and trauma memory.Objective We aimed to investigate the acute alcohol effects on spontaneous memories following a trauma film as well as explicit memory for the film.Methods Utilising an independent-group double-blind design, 48 healthy volunteers were randomly allocated to receive alcohol of 0.4 or 0.8 g/kg or a matched placebo drink. A stressful film was viewed post-drink. Skin conductance was monitored throughout and mood and dissociative symptoms were indexed. Volunteers recorded their spontaneous memories of the film daily in an online diary over the following week. Their explicit memory for both gist and details of the film was tested on day 7.Results Intriguingly, an inverted 'U' alcohol dose-response was observed on intrusive memories with a low dose of alcohol increasing memory intrusions while a high dose decreased intrusions. In contrast, explicit memory performance after 7 days showed a linear dose-response effect of alcohol with both recall and recognition decreasing as dose increased.Conclusions These findings highlight a striking differential pattern of alcohol's effects on spontaneous memories as compared with explicit memories. Alcohol's effect on spontaneous memories may reflect a dose-dependent impairment of two separate memory systems integral to the processing of different aspects of a traumatic event.
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Alcohol had a linear effect on voluntary memory and a quadratic effect on involuntary memory.
“Alcohol had linear effect on VM and quadratic effect on IVM”
From Episodic memory, perceptual memory, and their interaction: Foundations for a theory of posttraumatic stress disorder. (2014) · cites this paper as Bisby et al. (2009)
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Bisby, J. A., Brewin, C. R., Leitz, J. R., & Valerie Curran, H.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Bisby, James A.
- Venue
- Psychopharmacology
- Published
- 2009-02-27
- Volume
- 204
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 655-666
- ISSN
- 0033-3158 (ISSN-L)
- 1432-2072
- OpenAlex
- W1992149145
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 5.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Psychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- acute alcohol effects, intrusive memories, post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic memory, declarative memory, dose-response relationship, skin conductance, dissociative symptoms, memory impairment
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Ethanol, Central Nervous System Depressants, Dose-Response Relationship, Drug, Double-Blind Method, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Male, Memory, Motion Pictures, Mental Recall, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Time Factors, Recognition, Psychology, Young Adult
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