A new study has revealed that those skills that are strongly linked to driving ability can be “very much” with less than half the fluid.
Scientists with the California-based Ames Research Center at Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and San José State University have warned that hand-eye coordination in driving and other activities has been compromised. after eating the equivalent of less than half a beer, for a person weighing about 75 kg.
The findings provide new information about the potential impact of even alcohol consumption on high-risk human activity that is dependent on visual and visuomotor control, such as driving, piloting or operating heavy machinery.
In previous studies, eye movements and vision were only affected by blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) approaching the legal limit for driving.
The study from the research team based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California found for the first time that hand-eye coordination is more sensitive to alcohol with some coordination measures being disrupted by more than 20 percent at BAC rates as low as 0.015 percent.
“Our findings provide a cautionary tale that thematic knowledge of the drink is not often aligned with a weakened focus on sensorimotor coordination. In other words, the majority feel they are unprepared after a single drink, but they are largely, “said Terence Tyson, the first author of the study in a paper published in The Journal of Physiology.
Driving can affect the consumption of just a small amount of alcohol, even if the driver may be feeling OK and well within the legal limit, Tyson said.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers measured voluntary eye movements, pupil responses, and BAC, several times a day while performing a specially designed task, before and after. after drinking alcohol.
At random, the volunteers were given a mixed drink in which a quantity of alcohol was achieving the highest (0.06 per cent) or lower (0.02 per cent) BAC levels so that they were unaware of exactly what they drank a certain drink. day.
The researchers then described 21 different ocular measures that were tested to assess neural processing in specific brain areas that contribute to different parts of the eye movement and pupillary responses.
The study participants were men and women, mostly in their 20s, who drink 1-2 drinks per week on average.
The researchers made sure participants had a full night’s sleep the night before, and asked them to stop taking both alcohol and caffeine for several nights in a row before testing.
In addition to this finding specific to alcohol impairment, this study further demonstrated how a collection of noninvasive eye designs can be specifically designed to quantify small processing deficits in the brain.
In future studies, the researchers plan to look at how other types of brain conditions affect their eye dimensions, such as those caused by degenerative diseases or toxic manifestations.
NASA is interested in developing sensitive but non-invasive methods for detecting small defects.