BackgroundAlcohol-related driving accidents and fatalities occur most frequently at nighttime and at dawn, i.e. a mesopic lighting condition in which visual processing depends on both rod and cone photoreceptors. The temporal functions of the rod and cone pathways are critical for driving in this lighting condition. However, how alcohol influences the temporal functions in the rod and cone pathways at mesopic light levels is inconclusive. To address this, the present study investigated whether an acute intoxicating dose of alcohol impairs rod- and/or cone-mediated critical fusion frequency (CFF, the lowest frequency of which an intermittent or flickering light stimulus is perceived as steady).
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