THE EFFECT OF A RANGE OF ALCOHOLS ON THE CONTRACTION OF GUINEA-PIG VENTRICULAR MYOCYTES

Previous results have shown that ethanol and some anaesthetics have a negative inotropic effect on the heart. This study was undertaken to investigate the influence of a range on n-alcohols (with chain lengths from 2 to 8) on contractility in guinea-pig ventricular myocytes. The results demonstrate that the negative inotropic action of alcohols increases dramatically as the chain length increases. The concentration required to reduce the magnitude of contraction to 50% of control (IC50) was 274 mM, 26 mM, 1.4 mM and 235 muM for ethanol, butanol, hexanol and octanol, respectively. The relationship between the logarithm of IC50 and chain length was linear for all the alcohols tested (up to a chain length of 8).