With
regard to alcohol effects, it is of interest to note the lack of association with pharmacokinetic parameters, and especially with Cmax. This study provides novel and relevant information on the effects of low doses of alcohol. Law enforcement agencies use fixed limits of alcohol concentrations for driving that, according to our findings summarized in Fig. 2, may not correspond to the same effect for all individuals. In the European Union, driving limits for most countries are 500 mg ethanol per liter of blood, although in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as in most states in the MAPK inhibitor United States the limit reaches 800 mg/L. In the current study, we have shown that most participants had significant delays in their reaction times and motor times at peak ethanol concentrations under 500 mg/L (Fig. 2). Only 21 participants (8.4%) reached alcohol concentrations over 500 mg/L, and only two reached concentrations over 600 mg/L. However, 61 participants (24.4%) experienced at the ethanol peak time a delay in reaction time of over 20% of their basal values, and 130 (48%) experienced at the ethanol peak time a delay in motor time of over 20% of their basal values. This suggests that, Selleckchem GDC-0449 at least for some individuals, a 500-mg/L ethanol
concentration limit might be too high. The reason for the variability in alcohol effects, including both the magnitude
and the direction of change (improvement or deterioration of performance after alcohol intake) (Fig. 2), remains unknown. The bimodal distributions of the reaction and motor time changes after alcohol challenge are unexpected because the participants got used to the tasks before measurements, and because basal values were taken before and after alcohol use. People that seem to improve at ethanol peak concentrations had not particularly good or bad performance before or after alcohol use, as compared with the rest of the participants. Our findings Reverse transcriptase indicate that for all participants variability in alcohol effects is not related to alterations in alcohol pharmacokinetics. Because alcohol effects are mediated by several receptors, including the type A γ-aminobutyric acid receptor,26 glutamate receptors such as N-methyl-D-aspartate27, 28 or kainate,29 glycine receptors,30, 31 P2X4 receptor,32 or type 3 serotonin receptor,33, 34 it is conceivable that part of the interindividual variability in the alcohol effects observed here may be related to alterations in these receptors, and further studies will be conducted to investigate the basis for such variability. The authors thank Prof. James McCue for assistance in language editing.