Chunk #54 — Locomotor Activating, Autonomic and Central Electrophysiological Responses to Alcohol Predictive of Risk — Heart rate and autonomic stimulation
Alcohol reinforcement is directly associated with heart rate/autonomic arousal, such that (a) alcohol consumption increases heart rate in nonalcoholic normotensive human subjects (Grassi et al. 1989;Higgins et al. 1993;Ireland et al. 1984;Iwase et al. 1995); (b) increased heart rate is associated with self-reports of the stimulating effects of alcohol using the BAES (Brunelle et al. 2007); similarly, (c) in FHP individuals, increased heart rate during alcohol consumption is positively associated with the hedonic properties of alcohol (Assaad et al. 2003); and (d) FHP individuals experiencing the greatest increases in heart rate during alcohol consumption scored highest on measures of impulsivity and sensation-seeking (Brunelle et al. 2004), with these personality traits being strong predictors of alcohol abuse [e.g. (Andrucci et al. 1989).
