Chunk #57 — Locomotor Activating, Autonomic and Central Electrophysiological Responses to Alcohol Predictive of Risk — Heart rate and autonomic stimulation
We know of only five rodent studies that have examined changes in heart rate during limited access alcohol consumption. Two studies in heterogeneous stock rats indicate that, as with the clinical research, alcohol consumption results in heart rate/autonomic stimulation (El-Mas, Abdel-Rahman 2007;Ristuccia, Spear 2008). Three studies with P rats found this as well (Bell et al. 2002;Bell et al. 2008;Bell et al. 2007). Moreover, all of the studies using P rats reported that the increases in heart rate could be conditioned to the test environment, with alcohol-consuming P rats displaying increased heart rate during the 90 min pre-test session, when only water was available. The earliest study (Bell et al. 2002) reported that whereas saccharin self-administration resulted in a short-term (~15 min) increase in heart rate, alcohol self-administration resulted in a much longer increase in heart rate (the entire length of the 90 min test session). The subsequent study (Bell et al. 2007) reported that alcohol self-administration during the peri-adolescent window of development (post-natal days 30 through 72) resulted in lower basal heart rate when tested during adulthood. These authors
