Intravenous Alcohol Administration Studies in Humans: Investigator-Prescribed and Self-Administration Paradigms

Alcohol administration experiments, or sometimes termed alcohol challenges, fall into two classes: those in which the investigator determines the dose or exposure of alcohol to be delivered and those in which the participant determines it. Investigator-administration paradigms are used in both preclinical and human studies and seek to inform the impact of differential sensitivity to prescribed level and duration of alcohol concentrations, and to its rate of change with respect to time (slope), on physiological, behavioral, and subjective responses to alcohol. Self-administration paradigms represent the gold standard for assessing drug seeking and consumption behavior in animal research with increasing application to human laboratory assessment. This review covers both classes of studies in humans, but focuses on the methods using an intravenous route of administration using the Computer-assisted Alcohol Infusion System (CAIS). The technique couples a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model of alcohol distribution and elimination with parameters tailored to each participant to overcome the two- to threefold range of peak breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) and time to peak BrAC after oral alcohol administration. The procedures to accomplish both experimental types are provided.