Alcohol consumption and frontal lobe shrinkage: study of 1432 non-alcoholic subjects

Abstract

Objectives-To evaluate the influences of chronic alcohol consumption on brain volume among social drinkers, as it is well known that alcohol misusers have a high risk of brain shrinkage. Methods-Frontal lobe volumes on MRI were compared with the current alcohol habits of consecutive 1432 non-alcoholic subjects. Results-After adjusting for other variables, age was found to be the most powerful promoting factor for the shrinkage with a odds ratio of 2.8 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.23-3.06) for each 10 years of age. Regarding alcohol habit, 667 of the subjects were abstainers, and 157, 362, and 246 of the subjects were light (average 88.2 g ethanol/week), moderate (181.2 g/week), and heavy (418.1 g/week) drinkers, respectively. Moderate alcohol consumption did not increase the incidence of frontal lobe shrinkage (odds ratio 0.98; 95% CI 0.73-1.33), whereas heavy drinkers were at a higher risk compared with abstainers (1.80; 1.32-2.46). The contributory rate of alcohol consumption for frontal lobe shrinkage was 11.3%. Conclusion-The brain tends to shrink physiologically with age. Heavy alcohol consumption seems to exaggerate this shrinkage in social drinkers. Moderate alcohol consumption does not seem to aVect brain volume. (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2001;71:104-106)

Decreased Volume of the Brain Reward System in Alcoholism

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The role of self-reported impulsivity and reward sensitivity versus neurocognitive measures of disinhibition and decision-making in the prediction of relapse in pathological gamblers

“…Diminished self-regulation is displayed when an addicted person is not able to inhibit the urge for a desired drug or behavior, and to shift his or her behavior from the addictive reinforcement to a less self-destructive reinforcement. At the endophenotypical level, diminished neurocognitive selfregulatory functions have been found in substance dependence and PG (Horner et al 1999 ;Paraherakis et al 2001 ;Bechara & Damasio, 2002 ;Bolla et al 2003 ;Goudriaan et al 2006), and recent neuroimaging studies show abnormalities in the brain reward circuitry in substance dependence and PG (Kubota et al 2001 ;O'Neill et al 2001 ;Bolla et al 2003 ;Potenza et al 2003 ;Reuter et al 2005).…”

Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction in Older Patients with a History of Alcohol Abuse

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