Why the study?
How do central factors affect autonomic arousal in response to cold pressor stimulation across normal, alcoholic, and brain-damaged subjects?
How do central factors affect autonomic arousal in response to cold pressor stimulation across normal, alcoholic, and brain-damaged subjects?
Brain damage and alcoholism alter autonomic arousal and recovery patterns in response to cold pressor stimulation compared to hospitalized controls.
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Altered autonomic recovery patterns warrant cautious test interpretation in these groups; leaves open causal mechanisms and clinical relevance.
In order to study the role of central factors in controlling autonomic arousal, hospitalized control, brain‐damaged, and alcoholic patients were tested for responsivity to the cold pressor test. During the last 30 sec of a 1 min immersion, half of the S s were given a motor task consisting of 12 reaction time trials. The dependent variable was the cutaneous vasomotor response measured by a plethysmograph. Hospital controls showed strong rebound tendencies on recovery and well‐modulated responses during immersion. The brain‐damaged had plethysmograph responses which after immersion showed little or no tendency to recover. Alcoholics manifested intermediate tendencies. Hospital controls who received the motor task during immersion had a reduction in response whereas brain‐damaged S s in the same condition showed increased response. Also noted were two distinctly different plethysmograph response profiles to the cold pressor: vasodilation and vasoconstriction.
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Lovallo et al. (1973) studied this question.
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