1. Supervisors: Assoc. Prof Raimondo Bruno and Dr Amy Peacock
Fourth year research proposal The effects of consuming alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AmED) on risk-taking
Holly Bromfield
Supervisors: Assoc. Prof Raimondo Bruno and Dr Amy Peacock
You had a great intro here – I think you need to flag that the drivers for ED use are to reduce being tired when you’re out drinking, so that you can drink for longer! This has popped up in several studies
AP: agree re the first bit you read here being great – I think having a slide similar to Xiao’s overviewing the basis assumptions behind why AmED might lead to increased risk-taking would help the audience follow that overview even better

2. EDs are commonly mixed with alcohol to reduce tiredness whilst drinking so that users can drink for longer.
Mixing ED with alcohol typically does nothing to improve performance (Peacock et al., 2014)
But, may increase stimulation, causing misinterpretation of level of intoxication (Peacock, Bruno, Martin & Carr, 2013)
Misinterpretation of intoxication may lead to an increase in risk-taking.

3. Rationale Does consuming AmED increase risk-taking?
Self-report retrospective survey studies
Between-subjects: AmED users reported greater risk-taking relative to other alcohol drinkers (Peacock, Pennay, Droste, Bruno & Lubman, 2014)
Are AmED drinkers more risky?
Within-subjects: Lower risk taking in AmED drinking sessions relative to alcohol only session (Peacock, Pennay, Droste, Bruno & Lubman, 2014)
Environment?
Frequency of use?
As we discussed – do the thinking for the audience
The between subjects – the fact that people who drink ed are riskier could say something about the drink, or it could say something about the people that drink ED
AP: yep. These studies look at people’s risk-taking in general or after they have alcohol – there’s nothing about what they do after AmED itself.
The within subjects – suggests that in the risky people that dop drink ED, drinking ED actually makes them less risky!
AP: yep. And you can acknowledge that this is surprising, need to consider limitations of the methodology, retrospective self-report….
AP: can include refs for 1 or 2 studies for between/within in very small font e.g., size 14, just so the reader knows you have sources to back this up

4. Measures of risk-taking
Simulated driving task:
Non-significant interactive effect of alcohol and ED (p = .508) (Lubman et al., 2013).
Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART):
Significant main effect of ED, g = 0.28, p = 0.047
No interactive effects of alcohol and ED. (Peacock, Bruno, Martin & Carr, 2013).

5. Rationale Automatic Balloon Analogue Risk Task (A-BART)
Measures risk-taking
Includes all trials
Outcome measure: Pumps entered to blow up virtual balloon

6. Rationale
Determination Test component of the Fitness to Drive Standard test battery (Schuhfried GmBH, 2012).
Measures stress, reactive tolerance
Visual, auditory and
other stimuli
Outcome measures:
Number of correct
responses and reaction
time.
Need to acknowledge that this Lubman was actually peacock
For these – note the nature of the measure; the number of ED and the magnitude of effects. Don’t worry about the F value
AP: as discussed when practiced, would have a slide here specifying benefits of lab research (controlled environment, objective measurement of risk-taking) and the types of tasks (driving simulator, BART) used to assess risk-taking, with a full description of how BART works, and then move to this slide overviewing results of lab risk-taking studies on AmED

7. Rationale Real world drinking ED doses of 750ml Pre-drinking
Drinking throughout the
night.
Recommended drinking
Maximum of 500ml ED in 24 hours
Maximum of 4 std. alcoholic drinks
on one occasion
Limitations of current research
ED doses limited to 500ml – 160mg of caffeine
Bolus administration
As discussed, set this up as 3 questions:
How do people mainly drink when they drink alcohol? You could actually ask the audience. Also flag the average doses from Amy’s survey studies and the recommended doses from NHMRC & for ED
How do researchers dose people in the lab? Explain the bolus etc
Explain how you’re improving on this
AP: and feel free to use images to illustrate this

8. Aims
To test the effect of consuming AmED on risk-taking by comparing individual’s performance on two measures of risk behaviour relative to their performance when they consume alcohol only.
Replicating real-world doses e.g., 2.5 EDs and 5 standard alcoholic beverages.
Prior to this, have a slide explaining the BART and expolaining the DT, with pictures. Feel free to play with it in the lab (it is on the PC with the weird frame around it).
Here, just mention ‘on two measures of risk behaviour’
AP: on this note, you can get some good images depicting the BART if you google image BART:

9. Hypotheses AmED Number of pumps (more pumps = increased risk)
Reaction Time (faster RT = increased risk)
Alcohol
Alcohol
AmED
Time
Time
Responses (less correct responses = increased risk)
Number of correct
Alcohol
AmED
Time

10. Design
6 (Time point) by 2 (Condition) within-subjects, double blind, placebo controlled
Independent variable:
Time point: Baseline, 15 minutes post dose 1, 2, 3 & 4, and again at 45 minutes post dose 4
Condition: AmED and Alcohol only
Dependent variables:
number of pumps
number of correct responses
reaction time

11. Participants N = 30 (15 males, 15 females) Age range = 18- 30
Inclusion criteria:
completion of Year 12
have consumed 1 to ml ED in past month
≥ 5 standard alcoholic drinks on one occasion in past month
have consumed 4-28 caffeinated beverages in the preceding week
normal sleep patterns
normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Exclusion criteria:
current significant medical or neurological disorder
pregnant or breastfeeding
history of alcohol use at harmful levels Audit>16
illicit drug use in preceding six months
current use of prescription medication
significantly elevated psychological distress Kessler-10 >25
low pre-morbid intellectual functioning WTAR <85
As discussed – for exclusions
Say:
Make sure that the participant can tolerate the beverages by….
Making sure that people will not react badly to the beverages by…..
Exclude secondary variables that might make it harder to interpret the effects of the beverages by…..

12. Materials Primary Measures Automatic BART
DRIVESTA - Determination Test
Covariates
The Attitudes to Driving Violations Scale
Impulsivity scale - I7 Impulsiveness Questionnaire
Kill the alpha! Just explain the task and the dv and the duration. Need to explain how this is a measure of risk. Probably need all this earlier in the presentation

13. Procedure 1 x 60 minute familiarisation session
Participants must abstain from the following:
eating for 4 hours (except for consuming a small meal 60 minutes before each session)
caffeine for 8 hours and alcohol for 24 hours.
illicit drugs and prescription medications for the duration of participation
As discussed – do this and the procedure timeline with a) drink icons and b) graphically, in a plot
AP: and include abstinence requirements somewhere (and maybe time of day sessions conducted/gap between sessions, but not critical)

14. Dosing Schedule .10 .08 Breath Alcohol Content (BrAC) .05 30 60 90 12030 60 90
120
Time (minutes)

15. Procedure Dose ingredients:
Vodka, (37.5% alcohol/volume Smirnoff Red Label®,
No.21)
Red Bull each 250ml serve contains: 80mg caffeine
Sugar syrup English-toffee and Black Cherry

16. Procedure Administration Standardized across participants/sessions
Doses must be consumed within 10 minutes (split into 2 equal doses)
BrAC taken every 10 minutes post consumption
As per slide 13 – do this in a plot, and you can combine this and slide 13

17. Procedure Releasing participants
Participants will be able to wait in a separate room whilst they sober up. Once registering two consecutive BrAC readings of 0.03% or lower within a 15 minute period participants will be free to leave.

18. Analysis Power Analysis
30 participants are required to achieve 80% power to identify a moderate magnitude effect of g=0.5 for the breakdown analyses
Data Analysis
A 6 (Time) x 2 (Condition) mixed models for repeated measures analysis will be used.
Covariates will also be included in the model and systematically tested for influence.
You require 30 participants to achieve 80% power to identify an effect of this magnitude (cross check with the way I edited your proposal) Note – ge is 0.5 not 0.05; and this is not for the interaction but for the breakdown analyses. If in doubt, plot the effects that we’re talking about