ACC activity, suggesting that the top-down regulatory functions are most vulnerable to moderate intoxication. In the present study, the effects of alcohol were specific to the event-related theta associated with semantic retrieval and the executive dimension. These two functions appear to be supported by highly overlapping neurofunctional systems that were engaged by the double-duty task. The left-lateralized fronto-temporal cortex subserves lexical-semantic retrieval, as indicated by the sensitivity of theta power to real words, but not pseudowords. Additionally, a somewhat bilateral fronto-cingulate network was additionally activated by increased task demands during AN, consistent with right temporo-prefrontal contributions during attention-demanding processing oddball patterns (Halgren et al., 2011). An indirect confirmation of the spatial estimates obtained in the current study and their relative sensitivity to both semantic retrieval and difficulty is provided by a BOLD–fMRI study carried out by Sabsevitz et al. (2005). They manipulated the difficulty of a semantic judgment task and found that abstract nouns activated left temporal and inferior frontal cortex. This strongly converges with our observation that theta power was elicited by real words in the left-lateralized language system. In contrast, the activity in a more bilateral lateral prefrontal and medial ACC network was modulated by increased difficulty demands
