The Effects of Alcohol on Visual Evoked Potential and Multifocal Electroretinography

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the acute effects of ethanol administration on pattern-reversal visual evoked potential (VEP) and multifocal electroretinography (mfERG). Fifteen healthy subjects with no ocular or general disease were recruited. VEP (0.25° pattern sizes) and mfERG with 19 elements in two recording segments were performed before ethanol administration to obtain baseline for each participant. A few days later, the participants visited again for VEP and mfERG measurements after ethanol administration. Ethanol (0.75 g/kg) was administered orally over the course of 30 minutes. VEP and blood alcohol concentration were evaluated one hour after ethanol administration, and mfERG was conducted after pupil dilation. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare parameter changes after randomized eye selection. The mean blood alcohol concentration was 0.034% ± 0.05% by volume. VEP revealed a P100 latency delay (109.4 ± 5.3; 113.1 ± 8.2; P = 0.008) after alcohol administration. The P1 implicit time of ring 1 on mfERG showed a trend of shortening after alcohol administration (37.9 ± 1.0; 37.2 ± 1.5; P = 0.048). However, the changes did not show statistical significance after Bonferroni correction. In conclusion, orally administrated ethanol (0.75 g/kg) appears to suppress the central nervous system, but it is not clear whether alcohol intake affects the retina.

Electroretinography in psychiatry: A systematic literature review

“…We found 15 articles evaluating the effects of various substances on ERG [6,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Of these, nine studied the effects of cocaine, three studied cannabis, two studied alcohol, and one studied mixed drug use.…”

Impact of Spectral Severity of Alcoholism on Visual-Evoked Potentials: A Neuropsychiatric Perspective

“…[24] Thus, our study is the first one documented to evaluate and putatively search for optimal neurophysiological biomarkers for differentiating alcohol spectral severity by empirically identifying specific set of patterns obviously discernable (if any) on VEP in six divided set of subgroups of patients. The previous data from >20 studies [9,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] [ Table 5] showed few robust pointers for usefulness of VEPs in relation to alcohol use disorder (s) not only in in vivo animal experimentations but also in humans helping to differentiate subgroup of patients who had been abstinent for more than 3 months to those who are either intoxicated or having withdrawal. To our surprise, we noted couple of critical studies by Urban et al and Nazliel et al, who reported that only 28% and 15% of alcoholics had abnormal findings on VEP, which is in contrast to most studies including ours with 75% patients with psychiatric comorbidity and 66.67% patients with neurological complications.…”

“…Quintyn et al [9] 1999 Changes in the vision of 16 people after consumption of a small quantity of alcohol was studied Visual performance is less affected by the visual changes than by alteration in brain functions for a low blood alcohol level Nazliel et al [21] 2007 40 study patients who had histories of alcohol abuse for at least 6 years 15% of the patients demonstrated abnormal VEP results at least in one tested eye Kim et al [35] 2016 VEP (0.25 pattern sizes) were performed on 15 healthy before ethanol administration Ethanol (0.75 g/kg) was administered orally over the course of 30 min. VEP and blood alcohol concentration were evaluated 1 h after ethanol administration…”

Avaliação morfológica e funcional da retina de pacientes com esclerose múltipla e espectro da neuromielite óptica usando os eletrorretinogramas de campo total e multifocal e a tomografia de coerência óptica

“…Alterações supernormais transitórias da latência ao ERGmf foram descritas em pacientes diabéticos portadores de hiperglicemia [277], alterações retinianas agudas com o tabagismo [278] e álcool [279]. Em todos os casos os autores consideraram como principal causa de tais alterações o aumenta do consumo de oxigênio na retina, seja por aumento na oferta (i.e.…”

“…ou por aumento do consumo (i.e. efeito da nicotina ou álcool)[281], ocasionando aumento do fluxo sanguíneo tecidual[279], aumento do metabolismo retiniano e consequente hiperestimulação. Kim et al[279] também demonstrou uma dissociação dos achados doERGmf com os PEV demonstrando acometimentos neuronal e retiniano distintos em uma alteração sabidamente depressora do SNC.…”