We will develop an inexpensive, a portable system for quickly assessing the effects of alcohol on basic cognitive functions including spatial, grammatical, and arithmetic reasoning, divided attention, working memory and skilled visuomotor coordination. The system will be designed to measure changes in cognitive performance from an individual's own personal baseline, and will be useful for tracking changes in cognitive function in recovering alcoholics and for monitoring compliance. During Phase I, we will test the feasibility of the system in a pilot study in which ten subjects will have an alcoholic beverage or a placebo in a double-blind, randomized, crossover design. MANOVA will be used to determine which set of tasks and how many trials of each task are required to reliably detect the effects of alcohol on cognitive performance.
