Long-Term Alcohol Abstinence Reverses Some Brain Structural Changes
Originally published in Reuters Health, November 19, 2001
WESTPORT, CT — Long-term abstinence from alcohol reverses some of the structural changes in the brain associated with heavy consumption, according to a report in the November issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Chronic alcohol abuse brings changes in the gray and white matter of the brain readily visible by magnetic resonance imaging, as well as possible metabolic consequences discernible through magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), the authors explain.
Dr. Dieter J. Meyerhoff and colleagues from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of California at San Francisco compared quantitative MRI and MRS results from 12 recovering alcoholics and eight actively heavy drinking (AHD) subjects.
Recovering alcoholics had significantly greater white matter volume in the frontal lobes than did the AHD subjects, the authors report, whereas white matter volumes in the other regions examined were lower. Among recovering alcoholics, frontal white matter volume percentages showed a positive correlation with duration of abstinence from alcohol.
In contrast, the report indicates, white matter lesions occupied lower volumes in recovering alcoholics than in AHD subjects in all areas except the frontal lobes.
Cortical gray matter volume was higher in the orbital frontal pole and somatosensory cortex of recovering alcoholics, the researchers note, but lower in the anterior cingulate. As measured by MRS, the metabolites of N-acetyl-aspartate, creatine, and choline did not differ between the two groups.
"These results suggest reversal of structural abnormalities in some brain regions of abstinent alcoholics and persistent structural damage in other brain regions," Dr. Meyerhoff concluded. "We still need to learn, however, what this means for the individual's brain function."
Dr. Meyerhoff added that longitudinal studies of alcoholics undergoing treatment for their drinking problem are in the works, in hopes of identifying the relative effects of long-term abstinence and relapse.
