Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to E X Freed.
Research with the Bender-Gestalt Test and alcoholism has focused on possible organic deficits in alcoholics and elucidation of hypothesized alcoholic personality characteristics. The evidence for both is equivocal.
Two lines of rats bred for differences in motor impairment following alcohol treatment were also found to be differentially affected by sodium pentobarbital in three experiments. The most affected (MA) animals, bred for sensitivity to alcohol, showed a decrement in stabilimeter activity at doses of 8 mg and 16 mg pentobarbital per kg body weight. The least affected (LA) animals, bred for insensivity to alcohol, were affected only by the higher dose, at which the resulting impairment was still less than that of the MA group. This finding was partially replicated in a second study designed to test the possibility of an activating effect of pentobarbital on LA animals at 8 mg/kg. In a final study, MA animals were more likely to lose their righting reflex than LA animals at a dose of 18 mg/kg, and 'slept' longer following this dose. These results indicate that the differential sensitivity shown by these animals is not specific to alcohol, but can be generalized to another depressant.
Research since 1968 on the relationship between alcohol and mood is reviewed and updated. There are measurement and methodological barriers to delineating this relationship. The literature is replete with mixed findings that the motivation for drinking alcohol is psychological benefit, tension reduction, or affective improvement. Conflicting and equivocal data have characterized self-reports of depression and other affects in alcoholics. Evidence suggests that alcoholics experience increasing dysphoria as a consequence of alcohol consumption, while nonalcoholics anticipate--and generally attain--elevated moods as a result of drinking. Suggestions are made for further alcohol-mood research.
The results of selective breeding for differential impairment of motor activity after alcohol injection is shown for the first 13 generations of the LA and MA rat strains. In F13 rats, the mean decrement of activity after 1.5 g ethanol per kg i/p. is 90% for MA rats and 42% for LA rats, the strain difference significant at a "p" of 1.8 x 10(-11). Blood alcohol levels, body weight, litter size, organ weights and induction of taste aversion to alcohol and lithium chloride are described for these strains in various of the generations. Although strain differences are apparent on some of these measures, none are of a degree or kind which offers more than a speculative explanation of the large difference between the strains in their central nervous system sensitivity to alcohol.
Two rat strains, designated LA and MA, selectively bred for differential impairment of motor activity following an injection of alcohol, were tested in stabilmeters and compared over a range of ethanol doses. As expected, increasing doses of ethanol produced progressively greater activity decrements in both strains; however, the same dose of ethanol induced a more pronounced decrement in the MA strain than in LA strain at all doses. At the highest alcohol dose (2.25 g/kg), the LA animals were twice as active as were the MA strain at the 1.5 g/kg dose. This strain difference in impairment was evident within 3 min postinjection and remained throughout the 30 min test session. The results are discussed in terms of differential neural and behavioral toelrance to ethanol in the two strains.
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Two lines of rats have been bred which differ in sensitivity to alcohol over a range of doses, but the difference is not reflected in blood alcohol concentration, alcohol intake or selection. The two lines respond similarly on tests of emotionality; however, differences in running-wheel activity suggest differences in neural apparatus.
When rats were offered a choice of alcohol, butanediol and noncaloric saccharin solutions in a home-cage situation, consumption of saccharin dominated fluid choice, whether or not the animals were deprived of food.
The Profile of Mood States was administered weekly to 122 completers and 91 noncompleters of a hospital alcohol rehabilitation program. Ss' initial mood scores were not significant predictors of whether they would complete the program or of whether they would attain abstinence or show improvement in drinking practices at 3-month follow-up. When Ss left the program their final mood scores indicated significant improvement in mood states compared to their initial scores. Completers who later were found to be abstinent showed a trend toward affective improvement on all 6 Profile scales. It is suggested that assessment of an alcoholic's mood can contribute to formulation of treatment plans.
Strains of rats are being developed which have distinct responses in spontaneous locomotor activity to a subhypnotic dose of alcohol. The purpose is to produce one strain in which the injection of a standard dose of alcohol will result in objectively measurable intoxication and a second in which an identical dose will result in virtually no effect.
A review of studies in which the Rorschach Test was administered to alcoholics, and of studies of the effects of experimental intoxication upon Rorschach performances, reveals recurrent attempts to elucidate alcoholic "signs" and characteristic alcoholic perceptual style.
Barriers to effective alcoholism research include the search for unitary etiological factors, the difficulties in assembling homogeneous samples of subjects for study, the lack of widespread multidisciplinary efforts, and uncertainty about the goals of treatment for alcoholism. Innovative research approaches are needed for alcoholism prevention in order to preclude the proliferation of patterns of alcohol abuse.
The historical search for meaningful relationships between alcoholism and schizophrenia is reviewed. The results are considered inconclusive and further lines of research are suggested.
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In Experiment I, lever pressing by rats was maintained by the delivery of food pellets under a 45-sec fixed-interval schedule. Fixed-time 180-sec and fixed-interval 180-sec schedules of shock delivery were systematically superimposed on the baseline food schedule to study effects on schedule-induced water intake. Response-dependent shock had little, if any, effect on water intake, whereas shocks independent of lever pressing attenuated fluid intake. In Experiment 2, rats received food pellets under a fixed-time 60-sec schedule. Electric shock delivered concurrently under a variable-time 180-sec schedule, but never while the animal was licking or within 5 sec after licking terminated, led to similar attenuation of water intake. These findings suggest that schedule-induced polydipsia is sensitive to differences in the functional properties of response-independent and dependent electric shock.
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