A recent fMRI study [31] showed that moderate intoxication selectively attenuates ACC activation during high-conflict and error trials during the Stroop naming task, indicating vulnerability of regulatory, top-down functions to alcohol. However, the spatio-temporal characteristics of this effect remain unexplored. More specifically, it is not clear which processing stage is most affected by alcohol and what are the relative contributions of the ACC and the fronto-parietal distributed network under alcohol intoxication. It is possible that the ACC is primarily active during the early processing stage as it monitors for potential conflict [23], [24]. It may also contribute to response inhibition, selection, and execution [31]. Data analysis methods adapted to the time-sensitive signal allowed us to examine alcohol’s effects on both, stimulus-related processing and response preparation stages. The aim of the present study was to use multimodal imaging to investigate the effects of a moderate alcohol dose on total event-related theta power during different stages of conflict processing elicited by the Stroop naming task in healthy participants. Better insight into the dynamics of relative contributions to successive processing stages is essential
