Alcohol abuse is the second most prevalent lifetime psychiatric disorder. However, individuals do not face an equal risk of developing problematic alcoholrelated behaviors. Alcohol use disorders are heterogeneous conditions whose development may be caused by a variety of factors and vulnerabilities. The identification of markers of risk is necessary in order to identify individuals at higher risk for addiction early on as well as to help develop treatment interventions which target an individual's specific risk factors. The goal of the present dissertation is to increase our understanding of the role that one putative risk factor, an exaggerated cardiac response to alcohol, may play in the development of addictive behaviors. Five studies are reported. / The first study revealed that an exaggerated heart rate response to alcohol is associated with subjective reports of increased alcohol-induced stimulation. In a second study, the relationship between the cardiac response to alcohol and personality characteristics was examined. Individuals who demonstrated the elevated cardiac response to alcohol displayed a distinct personality profile characterized by high sensation-seeking and sensitivity to reward. Two separate studies followed investigating the relationship between this physiological response to alcohol and other addictive behaviours. One study found that individuals with an exaggerated cardiac response to alcohol were more likely to obtain superior scores on a measure of pathological gambling, while the next study found that users of psychostimulants (e.g., cocaine) also displayed heightened alcohol-induced cardiac responses. A final study examined the impact of conditioned cues of reward and non-reward on alcohol-induced cardiac responses. Individuals who had previously displayed elevated cardiac responses to ethanol showed reduced cardiac reactivity when alcohol ingestion occurred in a non-rewarding environment. Overall, these findings suggest that the cardiac response to alcohol is a marker of a pathway that may lead to addictive behaviors through increased sensitivity to incentive reward.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.102482 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Brunelle, Caroline. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | © Caroline Brunelle, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002573930, proquestno: AAINR27758, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds