of traumatic stress on alcohol use behaviors [35, 65]. The current study extends this work by suggesting that low interhemispheric alpha EEG coherence amplifies the association of COVID-19-related stress (family death or illness, media consumption, and economic hardships) with increases in drunkenness, and COVID-19-related protective factors (healthy coping strategies) with decreases in drunkenness since the start of the pandemic. However, we note that these exploratory interaction effects need replication in larger samples. Importantly, among COGA participants ages 50–90, assessments of coherence could have occurred as long as 30 years prior to COVID-19 questionnaire data, which is likely to have an impact on these findings.
