Type of Document	Thesis
Author	Donohue, Keith F.
URN	etd-08272003-150838
Title	Alcohol and Emotions: Potential Dose Effects and Mechanisms of Neuromuscular Control
Degree	Master of Science
Department	Psychology, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Alan R. Lang Committee Chair John P. Kline Committee Member Lisa A. Eckel Committee Member
Keywords	Emotional Consequences of Drinking
Date of Defense	2003-06-01
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract This study sought to replicate and extend previous research that used affective modulation of the eye-blink startle response (STR) to explore the emotional consequences of drinking. One of four levels of alcohol dose (including a no-alcohol control) was administered to each of 101 (48 female) young social drinkers to evaluate the extent to which increasing blood-alcohol level (BAL) differentially influences reaction to visual stimuli that vary in their emotional content. The results indicate that increasing BAL was associated with a linear decrease in the overall STR reactivity. Alcohol intoxication did not significantly alter the stereotypic modulation of the affective valence dimension of emotional responding in the low BAL group (i.e. STR responding to pleasant images was attenuated and STR responding to unpleasant images was augmented in a similar fashion). However, it did have this effect in the moderate and high BAL groups, suggesting a possible threshold for the stress-response dampening effects of alcohol. STR, which is mediated by a neural circuit that involves input from subcortical regions of the nervous system, was contrasted with the concurrently measured postauricular reflex (PAR), which is mediated by a neural circuit that does not involve input from these areas, allowing for evaluation of the functional location of alcohol’s effects on the arousal component of affective responding. The results indicate that while increasing BAL was associated with a decrease in overall STR magnitude, it was not associated with an overall decrease in PAR magnitude. This suggests the observed decrease in the arousal dimension of emotional responding is likely due to alcohol’s effects on subcortical areas of the central nervous system (consonant with its effect on STR magnitude), rather than its effects on motor-output components of the nervous system (which would be associated with a decrease in PAR magnitude).
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