Citation

Richter R, Kielholz P, Hobi V. Blutalkohol 1977; 14(5): 279-291.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1977, International Committee on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety and Bund gegen Alkohol und Drogen im Straßenverkehr, Publisher Steintor Verlag)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Alcohol-induced changes in activation have been investigated following the time-course of blood-alcohol concentrations. A single dose of 0.77 g/kg alcohol (vodka) was administered to 16 healthy men (mean age 36.9 years) serving as their own controls in a change-over design. To measure the CNS-activation level, two variables of electrodermal activity - the spontaneous fluctuation frequency and the skin resistance response - were used as indicators of habituation of the orienting response to an acoustic stimulus. In both variables the authors found a biphasic time-course of the alcohol effect upon the activation level, i.e. increased activation up to 60 min (the absorption phase), and well-known decreased activation in the post-absorption phase. It has been supposed that this biphasic effect is due to two relatively separable processes, which constitute by their phase-shifted antagonism the demonstrated effect, i.e. increased nonspecific tonic activation in the absorption phase and decreased specific phasic activation in the post-absorption phase.