Alcohol Administration Prior to Sleep

THE DISCOVERY that alterations in electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep patterns can be quantified has provoked numerous studies of the relationship of changes in sleep-stage control, to a variety of biochemical parameters and clinical problems. Ethyl alcohol,¹,²as well as a number of psychotropic drugs,³,⁴have been found to affect the control of sleep stages. When ethyl alcohol was administered orallyimmediately beforeretiring to three subjects for five consecutive nights, EEG stage I rapid eye movement (REM) sleep time was depressed the first night, but over the next three alcohol nights returned to control levels; on the fifth alcohol night, REM time exceeded control levels and remained at a high level for the following two recovery nights. By the fourth recovery night REM time finally returned to control levels.¹The present study was undertaken to determine if similar effects on REM time occurred if