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Autonomic Reactivity and Alcohol‐Induced Dampening in Men at Risk for Alcoholism and Men at Risk for Hypertension
Author(s) -
Conrod Patricia J.,
Pihl Robert O.,
Ditto Blaine
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1995.tb01535.x
Subject(s) - alcohol , reactivity (psychology) , cue reactivity , medicine , psychology , cardiology , psychiatry , addiction , craving , chemistry , alternative medicine , pathology , biochemistry
Both sons of male alcoholics with multigenerational family history of male alcoholism (MFH) and sons of essential hypertensives (HTs) exhibit elevated psychophysiological reactivity to stress when compared with male controls (FH‐). MFHs also demonstrate a significant baseline heart rate increase and stress‐response dampening following alcohol consumption. The present study investigates the specificity of this alcohol‐induced psychophysiological response pattern by testing these two risk groups in a shock response paradigm, both sober and alcohol‐intoxicated. A repeated measures analysis of variance on sober and alcohol‐intoxicated heart rate reactivity yielded a significant risk by alcohol interaction, indicating that alcohol consumption led to a greater decrease in reactivity in the MFH group compared with the HT and FH‐ groups. Similar results were obtained for muscle tension measures. MFHs also displayed greater increases in resting baseline heart rate and muscle tension when alcohol intoxicated. The results may reflect a sensitivity to negatively and positively reinforcing effects of alcohol specific to individuals with multigenerational familial histories of alcoholism.