In sum, results of this study confirm the essential contribution of the ACC to executive regulation and its vulnerability to moderate alcohol intoxication, in agreement with a previous fMRI study using the same paradigm [31]. However, superior temporal sensitivity of the aMEG method employed here further refined and extended these findings by providing insight into alcohol effects on conflict processing stages. The principal generator of conflict-related theta power was estimated to ACC, with contributions from distributed fronto-parietal areas. The ACC was uniquely sensitive to conflict during both early, conflict detection, and later stages reflecting response preparation and execution, suggesting a broader functional role of the ACC in decision conflict than proposed by major theoretical accounts [23], [24]. Alcohol attenuated event-related theta across successive processing stages. Selective vulnerability of the top-down, regulative capacity to alcohol intoxication may contribute to impaired self-control and inability to desist drinking [32], [34]. These findings further support the importance of theta as a biomarker of vulnerability to alcohol dependence [29].
