22. Alcohol

Tina Hinton and Graham Johnston

Department of Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

Phone: +61 2 9351 6208; Fax: +61 2 9351 3868; Email: tina.hinton@sydney.edu.au

Key words: alcohol, ethanol, glutamate, GABA, mechanism of action, GABA_A receptors, NMDA receptors, metabolism, adaptive changes, tolerance, dependence, alcohol withdrawal syndrome

Contents

22.1 The Control of Excitation and Inhibition

22.2 Alcohol and its Behavioural Effects

22.3 Mechanism of Alcohol Action

22.4 General Considerations with the use of Alcohol

22.5 Long Term Adaptive Changes with the use of Alcohol