COMPARISON BETWEEN SUBJECTIVE FEELINGS TO ALCOHOL AND NITROGEN NARCOSIS - A PILOT-STUDY

Nitrogen narcosis is often compared to alcohol intoxication, but no ac tual studies have been carried out in humans to test the comparability of these effects. If a common mechanism of action is responsible for the behavioral effects of these substances, biological variability of response to alcohol should correlate to that of nitrogen in the same i ndividual. To test this hypothesis, subjective feelings were assessed in two separate occasions in 14 adult male, healthy volunteers, nonpro fessional divers. In one occasion, each subject received 0.75 ml/kg (0 .60 g/kg) alcohol 50% (v/v PO) and in another day underwent a simulate d dive at 50 m for 30 min in a hyperbaric chamber. There was a signifi cant correlation between reported feelings in the two sessions; subjec ts who felt less intoxicated after drinking also felt less nitrogen na rcosis during the simulated dive. The results, although preliminary, r aise the hypothesis that ethanol and nitrogen may share the same mecha nisms of action in the brain and that biological differences might acc ount for interindividual variability of responses to both ethanol and nitrogen.