An Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Stimulant, Sedative, and Affective Responses to Alcohol

Subjective response (SR) to acute alcohol reflects individual variance to the sensitivity of alcohol's pharmacological effects. It has been argued that measures of stimulation and sedation may not fully capture the full-range SR, with 2 novel domains proposed: high arousal negative and low arousal positive. While substantial progress has been made in the field of SR and alcohol use risk, it remains unknown how these novel domains correspond to traditional SR measures. Therefore, the current study examined the latent structure of traditional and novel SR measures at rising breath alcohol concentrations (BrACs) during alcohol administration.

Heavy drinkers (n = 67; 36M/31F) participated in an intravenous alcohol administration. Questionnaires assessing stimulation, sedation, mood, valence and arousal, and craving were assessed at baseline and at BrACs of 20, 40, and 60 mg%. A series of exploratory factor analyses were conducted to examine the latent factor structure of SR at each time point. Correlations examined the association between the generated factors and measures of problematic alcohol use.

The analysis generated a 3-factor solution, consistent across all time points. The factors measured the following effects of SR: (i) stimulation and positive mood, (ii) sedation and aversive effects, and (iii) tension reduction. The tension reduction factor was most commonly associated with problematic alcohol use in this sample.

This study extends upon the literature evaluating the biobehavioral effects of alcohol by examining a novel combination of SR to alcohol measures. This study demonstrates that the proposed low arousal positive domain, which loaded onto the tension reduction factor, provides novel information not captured by previous SR measures. Going forward, studies of alcohol's subjective effects should use this dimensional approach to reduce multiple comparisons across a wide range of scales and to build a literature grounded on the underlying structure of SR as a translational phenotype for AUD.