The Impairment of Prospective Memory by Alcohol Use: Antecedents and Mechanisms

Xin Cong; Wang Haoyuan; Zhang Xinyu; Lu Dongfeng

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240202

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (2) : 267-273. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240202

General Psychology, Experimental Psychology & Ergonomics

The Impairment of Prospective Memory by Alcohol Use: Antecedents and Mechanisms

Xin Cong¹, Wang Haoyuan², Zhang Xinyu¹, Lu Dongfeng¹

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Abstract

Prospective memory refers to the ability to remember to perform a delayed intention at an appropriate time or situation in the future, such as remembering to return a book to the library tomorrow morning or to take a daily medication. Memory failures that occur in the future generate more problems in daily life than memory failures that occur in the past. It has been found that 50~70 percent of real-life memory failures can be attributed to failures in prospective memory. The completion of most activities in daily life is closely related to prospective memory. Previous studies have typically investigated prospective memory using a dual-task paradigm, which included both prospective memory and ongoing tasks. Alcohol is one of the most widely used drugs and has been shown to play a complicated role in mental health and society. The association between alcohol use and cognitive function has drawn attention, and the adverse effects of alcohol use on cognitive function are well-documented. Alcohol use can damage the brain structure and cognitive function, and reduce the individual’s prospective memory performance. More generally, the study of prospective memory failures under alcohol is important to health behavior since many interventions targeted at non-dependent drinkers rely, to some extent, on prospective memory.
The relation between alcohol use and prospective memory is influenced by many factors, including alcohol use patterns and doses, other substance abuse, differences in research measures, and types of prospective memory. Successful completion of prospective memory relies on the coordinated functioning of the subcomponents of executive function (working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility). Individuals firstly encode and store prospective memory intentions. When prospective memory cues appear, individuals need to retrieve prospective memory intentions, inhibit the ongoing task, remember the task rules and the responses, and flexibly switch from the ongoing task to the prospective memory task. The cognitive mechanisms through which alcohol use affects prospective memory are mainly related to executive function and attentional systems. In terms of neurological mechanisms, where alcohol use affects prospective memory involves the prefrontal and parieto-occipital cortex, the limbic system (hippocampus, anterior cingulate gyrus, and superior colliculus), cerebral cortical, and medullary substance. A systematic analysis of the factors influencing the relation between alcohol use and prospective memory and a summary of the mechanisms through which alcohol use affects prospective memory is of great value. It may inform interventions efforts that aim to improve the performance of prospective memory in clinical samples of alcohol use in the future.
Future research can investigate the effects of alcohol use on prospective memory components by experimental isolation and the separation of prospective memory processing phases in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) brain imaging techniques to understand the specific mechanisms of alcohol use on different prospective memory processing phases. In addition, future research should focus on the differences and improvements in research methods and on factors that improve prospective memory in clinical samples of alcohol use.

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alcohol use / prospective memory / executive functions

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Xin Cong, Wang Haoyuan, Zhang Xinyu, Lu Dongfeng. The Impairment of Prospective Memory by Alcohol Use: Antecedents and Mechanisms[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(2): 267-273 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240202

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