“Adaptation” of the Central Nervous System to Varying Concentrations of Alcohol in the Blood

Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of ethanol, whiskey, and ethanol with n‐propyl, n‐butyl, and iso‐amyl alcohols

“…It is conceivable that the slower rise to peak plasma concentration allowed the central nervous system time to adapt, thereby minimizing the ethanol-induced changes in reaction tirne.? : 10,20,26 Second, after the ethanol-higher alcohol mixture, the peak response in abundance of slow wave activity reached a peak one hour later than the 2Vz hr ( Fig. 4) after alcohol alone.…”

Interaction and acute cross tolerance between ethanol and hexobarbitone in the rat

“…The threshold dose of hexobarbitone needed to obtain suppression for 1 s or more of the bursts in activity seen in the EEG after barbiturate was determined (Wahlstrom, 1966a). Briefly, hexobarbitone as the racemate was infused at a constant rate of 0.25 mg/kg s-l into the tail vein of male rats (350 g).…”

“…In the rats in the main experiment (n = 18) four barbiturate threshold analyses were done before ethanol was given. The first one was discarded (Wahlstrom, 1966a) and a pre-ethanol mean of threshold dose and ensuing sleeping time was calculated on the remaining three. The mean and standard error for all participating rats were 59.7 f 1.1 mg/kg and 18.9 f 1.3 min respectively.…”

Alcoholism and animals

“…Acute tolerance, or tolerance that develops during a single administered dose of alcohol, can be measured by relating degree of impairment to blood alcohol levels throughout the course of action of the drug. A greater degree of impairment at a given blood alcohol level during the rising phase of the blood alcohol curve, as compared to the degree of impairment at the same blood alcohol level when the blood levels are falling, has been taken as evidence of acute tolerance (35). By another criterion, a return to nearly normal function while blood levels are still high can also be considered acute tolerance (35,40).…”