Intoxication level and emotional response

We used affective modulation of the eye-blink component of the startle reflex to examine effects of three levels of alcohol intoxication and a no-intoxication control on emotional responses to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures. Non-problematic student drinkers (n=101; 48 female) were randomly assigned to intoxication groups. Normal inhibition of startle during exposure to pleasant pictures was intact across groups. In contrast, potentiation of startle during viewing of unpleasant pictures was evident in the no- and low-intoxication groups, compared to the intermediate- and high-intoxication groups, in which it was significantly reduced. This pattern suggests that a direct and selective anxiolytic effect of alcohol can occur at higher levels of intoxication without an analogous impact on response to emotionally positive stimuli at similar levels.