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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2014 May;38(5):1247-54.
doi: 10.1111/acer.12377. Epub 2014 Mar 21.

Cardiac reactivity during the ascending phase of acute intravenous alcohol exposure and association with subjective perceptions of intoxication in social drinkers

Vatsalya Vatsalya  1 , Reza Momenan, Daniel W Hommer, Vijay A Ramchandani
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Cardiac reactivity during the ascending phase of acute intravenous alcohol exposure and association with subjective perceptions of intoxication in social drinkers

Vatsalya Vatsalya et al. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2014 May.

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study was to characterize cardiac reactivity measures, heart rate (HR), and heart rate variability (HRV), following acute intravenous (IV) alcohol administration and their association with subjective responses in social drinkers.

Methods: Twenty-four subjects (11 females) received IV alcohol infusions to attain and clamp the breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) at 50 mg% or placebo in separate sessions. Serial 5-minute cardiac recordings at baseline and during the infusion were analyzed to obtain frequency and time domain cardiac measures. Self-reported subjective perceptions were also obtained at the same time points.

Results: HR showed significant decreases from baseline, while the HRV measure pNN50 showed steady increases during the ascending phase of alcohol infusion. HR was inversely correlated with pNN50 across time and treatment. There was a significant association of HR with subjective feelings of high, intoxication, feeling drug effects, and liking drug effects across time during the ascending phase.

Conclusions: Acute IV alcohol resulted in decreases in HR and increases in HRV consistent with autonomic parasympathetic activation. The association of these changes with subjective responses suggests that cardiac reactivity may serve as a physiological marker of subjective alcohol effects. This study broadens the understanding of acute cardiovascular effects of alcohol and clinically significant cardiac conditions such as arrhythmia and cardiomyopathy associated with chronic alcohol drinking.

Keywords: Alcohol Clamp; Heart Rate; Heart Rate Variability; Intravenous Infusion; Subjective Perceptions.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Time course of mean (with SE bars) heart rate during the ascending phase of the infusion profile. Closed symbols: alcohol session; open symbols: placebo session. There was a significant treatment x time interaction (F (3, 30) = 4.36, p = 0.012), with post-hoc tests indicating significant differences between alcohol and placebo sessions at the 0–5 min (p = 0.0009) and 5–10 min (p = 0.039) epochs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Time course of mean (with SE bars) pNN50 during the ascending phase of the infusion profile. Closed symbols: alcohol session; open symbols: placebo session. There was a significant treatment x time interaction (F (3, 23) = 3.58, p = 0.029), with post-hoc tests indicating significant differences between alcohol and placebo sessions at the 5–10 min (p = 0.035) epoch.
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