alcohol Flashcards
harms associated with drugs, selected aspects of psychopharmacology of alcohol (ethanol), primary neuropharmacological targets of alcohol, psychological effects, alcohol-induced reduction in tension and anxiety, alcohol-induced memory loss ("amnesia"), mesocorticolimbic dopamine system and reward, chronic excessive alcohol use (38 cards)
how was the drug harm scale developed?
experts assign score (0-3) for each parameter
parameters averaged to yield overall harm score
how was the criteria and rating improved?
16 criteria
scores from 0-100
differential weighting of criteria to indicate their different importance
what are the acute psychological effects of alcohol?
decreased tension/anxiety (anxiolysis)
impaired memory (amnesia, “black out”)
directly “rewarding” effects of alcohol
what are the psychological effects of chronic alcohol consumption?
neuropharmacological adaptions, withdrawal symptoms and alcohol dependence
severe and chronic cognitive deficits due to brain shrinkage (Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome)
what are the non-specific pharmacological effects of alcohol?
interactions with lipid bilayer
mainly at higher concentrations - not really relevant when we drink alcohol unless very excessive
what are the specific neuropharmacological effects of alcohol?
interactions with ligand-gated ion channels (i.e. neurotransmitter receptors) and voltage-gated ion channels
at concentrations within range achieved by common alcohol consumptions
what is the first hit of alcohol?
neurotransmitter receptors (NMDA, GABA-A, 5-HT23, nACh)
voltage-gated ion channels (L-type Ca2+ channels, GIRKs)
leading to cascade of synaptic events involving many neurotransmitters
what does acute alcohol do overall?
tends to dampen neural activity
e.g. stimulation of inhibitory GABA receptors
what do the psychological effects of alcohol depend on?
complex interactions between many variables
environmental variables (social cues)
cognitive set (expectancy)
mood, arousal, personality factors
age and sex of subjects
exposure to other drugs (coffee, nicotine, etc) and nutritional state of subjects
what are the variables related to ethanol ingestion?
dose
rate of ingestion
time of testing post ingestion, time of day
type of beverage ingested (role of congeners)
what happens as you drink more alochol?
blind alcohol concentration increases
what has been shown about the relationship between alcohol and a reduction in tension and anxiety?
studies on human subjects reported variable effects on measures of anxiety
similar to classical anxiolytics, alcohol acts as indirect agonist at GABA-A receptors
comorbidity of anxiety disorders and alcohol abuse
alcohol relatively consistently reduces measures of anxiety in rodents
what is that cat odour avoidance test?
put cat odour in rat’s cage and rats have innate anxiety of cats - don’t approach
when anxiety reduced, might come out
rats who had high alcoholic beer, hid less and approached cat odour
what was the elevated plus maze test?
rats don’t like open high spaces so wouldn’t exposure elevated maze
high alcohol = high time spent outside
what was the test of ethanol self-administration in rats?
split into high and low anxious rats
option to give themselves ethanol
high administering in low anxious than high anxious rats
what memory does alcohol interfere with?
especially with encoding of new information into long term declarative memory
what is declarative memory?
memory that can be consciously recalled consisting of events
what is alcohol-induced anterograde amnesia?
range from little memory lapses to “fragmentary” to “en block black outs”
what are “en block black outs”?
partial or complete absence of memory
particularly when large amounts
what was Aaron White et al’s (2002) study into alcohol-induced memory loss?
asked undergraduates
“have you ever awoken after a night of drink not able to remember things that you did or places that you went?”
51% of those who have ever consumed alcohol answered “yes”
what are the possible mechanisms of alcohol-induced memory loss?
state dependence
selective interference with hippocampal memory mechanisms
what is state dependence?
information encoded/learnt in drug state may be remembered better if tested in comparable drugged state rather than non-drugged state
need to be in similar state as when learning/encoding to retrieve optimally
alcohol shown to render some aspects of declarative memory state dependent
evidence for asymmetric state dependence - retrieval especially reduced in AS but less so in SA group
however appears to account mainly for little memory lapses or fragmentary blackouts - en block blackouts seem to be due to other mechanisms
how is state dependence normally tested?
experiments usually include 4 groups in 2x2 design
AA = alcohol, alcohol
AS = alcohol, sober
SS = sober, sober
SA = sober, alcohol
two independent variables = state when encoding, state when retrieving
what is the state dependence word association test?
learning phase (day 1) = subjects asked to respond to 10 words with the first word that comes to mind
recall phase (day 2) = subjects cued with the words and asked to recall their response from day 1
recall better in group AA than in AS - state dependency
