Recently, Boha et al. [165] studied the acute effects of alcohol on task-related EEG during the performance of a mental arithmetic task that involved working memory. While no detrimental alcohol effect was seen on behavioral indices of task performance, alcohol decreased the usually occurring task-related frontally dominant theta increase corresponding to the working memory demand. Further analysis using complexity measures by the same group of authors [166] suggested that task-related decrease of the omega complexity (OC, reflecting the lesser level of complexity or higher spatial correlation between different electrodes) and increase of the synchronization likelihood (SL, reflecting the higher strength of coupling between EEG-channels) was found in the theta frequency band, indicating increased synchrony in the event-related theta band. Further, high dose of alcohol intake increased the OC values and decreased the anterior SL values under working memory condition, indicating decreased synchrony in ERO theta band.
