ABSTRACT
Cognitive neuroscience has enjoyed tremendous growth over the past decade due to the imaginative combination of computerized cognitive testing procedures and advanced neuroimaging and neurorecording techniques. In animals, the procedures now developed to assess cognitive functions have advanced tremendously, due, in part, to the use of highly automated operant procedures that can test many of the same cognitive functions that similar computerized procedures assess in humans (Buccafusco, 2001). Likewise, the availability of high-speed, high-capacity computers to neurophysiology labs has allowed for large scale neurophysiological acquisition of multiple single units (Nicoleis, 1999). The combination of large scale neurophysiological recording with sophisticated cognitive testing has opened up new opportunities for assessing the neural basis for ethanol’s disruptive effects on cognition.
