The Effects of Alcohol on the Central Nervous System in Humans

Abstract

Although gross changes in personality and behavior are readily apparent during acute alcoholic intoxication, these changes have only become the subject of systematic study within the past 100 years. Miles (1932) has summarized the different stages of clinical intoxication in the form of a scale relating the subjective states and typical behavioral changes seen with increasing blood alcohol levels. The earliest effects, tingling sensations in the mucous membrane of the mouth and throat, may appear with a blood alcohol level as low as 10 mg%. At the upper extreme (300 mg%) the subject passes into a stuporous condition, and at still higher levels (400 mg%) falls into a state of deep anesthesia which may end in death. This description of successive stages in clinical intoxication represents the typical or modal response commonly seen with a given blood alcohol level. The association between blood alcohol concentration and stages of clinical intoxication is not a clear one-to-one relationship. As with other psychotropic drugs, there are large individual differences in response to a given dosage as well as considerable variability in the subject’s response at different times or in different settings.