binge drinking and sex

Binge drinking and sex: effects on mood and cognitive function in healthy young volunteers

David E. Hartley, a, , , Sarah Elsabagha, b and Sandra E. Filea

a Psychopharmacology Research Unit, Centre for Neuroscience, King's College London, Hodgkin Building, Guy's Campus, London SE1 1UL, UK
b Department of Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, The School of Pharmacy, 29-39 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX, UK

Received 4 February 2004; Revised 25 March 2004; accepted 16 April 2004. Available online 10 July 2004.




Abstract
This study compared the mood and cognitive performance of male and female teetotal and binge drinking students. The binge drinkers had significantly lower self-ratings of trait anxiety and depression and of state alertness at the time of testing than did the teetotallers. The females had significantly higher ratings of trait and state anxiety, but there were no Sex×Bingeing interactions on mood. The binge drinkers made significantly fewer correct responses in a test of sustained attention and recalled fewer line drawings. There was a significant Sex×Binge interaction in a spatial recognition task because the male, but not the female, binge drinkers were slower to make correct responses. Males performed better than females in both the spatial and pattern recognition memory tasks. There were three tests of executive function. In a spatial working memory task, males performed better than females, but there were no effects of binge drinking. There were no effects in a test of mental flexibility. However, in a test of planning, the binge drinkers were significantly slower than the teetotallers were. Thus, compared with a group of teetotallers, the binge drinkers had lower trait anxiety and depression and poorer performance in tests of sustained attention, episodic memory and planning ability.