Prenatal alcohol exposure can damage both information processing and response ca...( Scientists use reaction time to me...)

• Scientists use reaction time to measure neurological deficits related to prenatal alcohol exposure.
• One signal and response is called simple reaction time (SRT).
• Two or more signals and responses are called choice reaction time (CRT).
• Children who were prenatally exposed to alcohol, yet do not have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, have slower information processing and motor responses to CRT tasks.

Many individuals who were prenatally exposed to alcohol may not meet the criteria for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, but nevertheless suffer from a wide range of neurobehavioral effects such as hyperactivity, learning and memory deficits, attention problems, and reductions in IQ. One measure used to examine neurological deficits is reaction time (RT), defined as the interval between perceiving a signal and physically responding to it. A study in the September issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research uses various RT tasks to closely examine information processing and motor responses in children who were prenatally exposed to alcohol.

"Reaction time is a measure of the delay in time that occurs between perceiving a signal, such as a light being turned on, and making a physical response to the signal, such as lifting a finger or hand from an electronic switch," explained Roger W. Simmons, professor of exercise and nutritional sciences at San Diego State University - San Diego and lead author of the study. "Since most of the elapsed time between the signal and the response is taken up with the brain processing the signal and deciding what motor response to make, RT is considered to be a generalized measure of decision making."

When one signal and response are used, it is called simple reaction time (SRT). When two or more signals and responses are used, it is called choice reaction time (CRT). As the number of signals and responses increases, the amount of information to be processed also increases. This, in
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16-Sep-2002