Study suggests alcohol affects women, men differently

After drinking alcohol, emotion recognition was biased toward positive emotions and sexual images were more pleasant, particularly among women, according to findings presented at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Congress.

“The effect of many medications and substances of abuse have been tested on various tests of emotion processing and social cognition. However, although many people drink beer and know its effects through personal experience, there is surprisingly little scientific data on its effects on the processing of emotional social information,” study researcher Matthias Liechti, MD, of University Hospital, Basel, Germany, said in a press release. “We found that drinking a glass of beer helps people see happy faces faster, and enhances concern for positive emotional situations. Alcohol also facilitates the viewing of sexual images, consistent with disinhibition, but it does not actually enhance sexual arousal. These effects of alcohol on social cognition likely enhance sociability.”

To assess associations between alcohol use and social cognition, as well as sexual arousal and desire, researchers conducted a double-blind, randomized, crossover study among 60 healthy social drinkers with a mean age of 25.4 years. Study participants consumed a low to moderate dose (target blood alcohol concentration of 0.4 g/L) of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beer. Effects of alcohol were assessed via the Face Emotion Recognition Task, Multifaceted Empathy Test and Sexual Arousal Task.

Visual analog scale ratings for any drug effect — liking, high, happy, talkative, open and wanting to be with others — were increased following alcohol consumption.

Subjective effects of alcohol were greater among women and participants with higher trait inhibitions.

Carriers of the G allele of GABARA2 rs279858 single-nucleotide polymorphism had greater ratings of liking.

Alcohol facilitated recognition of happy faces and increased emotional empathy for positive stimuli, particularly among participants with low trait empathy.

Explicit sexual images were rated more pleasant after alcohol consumption, particularly among women, and less pleasant after non-alcoholic consumption, compared with neutral images.

Alcohol did not affect levels of circulating oxytocin, according to researchers.

“This is an interesting study confirming conventional wisdom that alcohol is a social lubricant and that moderate use of alcohol makes people happier, more social and less inhibited when it comes to sexual engagement,” Wim van den Brink, MD, PhD, of the University of Amsterdam, said in the release. “The sex differences in the findings can either be explained by differences in blood alcohol concentration between males and females with the same alcohol intake, differences in tolerance due to differences in previous levels of alcohol consumption or by socio-cultural factors. It should also be recognized that different effects of alcohol can be seen according to whether your blood alcohol is increasing or decreasing, and of course how much alcohol you have taken. Finally, as Shakespeare noted, alcohol-related emotions and cognitions as studied are not always consistent with actual behaviors.” – by Amanda Oldt

Reference:

Dolder F, et al. Acute emotional and social cognitive effects of beer. Presented at: European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Congress; September 17-20, 2016; Vienna.

Disclosure: The study was funded by University Hospital Basel.