Neural Correlates During Alcohol Intoxication

Plain-language summary

Alcohol intoxication is responsible for a large proportion of violent crime/assault and personal injury in our society. While a number of variables have been associated with alcohol-related aggression, high trait aggression and impaired executive function have been identified as key factors. Both Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and Impulsive Aggression behavior (AGG) are related to impaired social-emotional information processing (SEIP) whereby social threat cues, especially ones that are ambiguous in nature, lead to hostile attribution and negative emotional response to the "other" and, then, aggression against the "other". Thus, understanding the underlying neuroscience of SEIP under the influence of alcohol will be critical to identifying targets for intervention to reduce alcohol-related aggressive behavior. In addition to potential pharmacologic and cognitive-behavioral based interventions, such interventions may also involve the rehabilitation of aberrant neuronal circuits underlying social cognitive function through neuroplasticity-based remediation exercises. This study is designed to see how brain activation of cortico-limbic circuits involving social-emotional information processing, analyzed by fMRI Imaging, are impacted by alcohol administration in those with and without aggressive disorders and with and without alcohol use disorder.

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