Cerebral ventricular enlargement. Chronic alcoholics examined by computerized tomography

Abstract

Computerized tomography was used to measure cerebral ventricular size in hospitalized alcoholic patients, all of whom had evidence of liver disease. Twelve alcoholic patients with neurologic symptoms such as withdrawal seizures, neuropathy, and drug overdose were included. All these patients had normal results from the mental status examinations by the time of discharge. Alcoholic patients had a much higher mean ventricular size compared to 60 control patients. One third of the alcoholics had markedly enlarged ventricles as opposed to only one of the 60 controls.

Auditory brain stem responses in chronic alcoholic patients

“…Contrary to Avdaloff's (1978) report that all patients with alcohol withdrawal seizures have cortical atrophy in CT scan, our study shows that only 2 out of 10 patients with alcohol withdrawal seizures have similar CT scan findings. The incidence of cerebral atrophy in CT scan in this study (46%) is higher than that reported by Fox et al (1976) who observed 4 of 12 alcoholics (32%) with enlarged ventricles, but lower than that by Cala et al (1978) who found that cerebral atrophy was present in 19 of 26 alcoholics (73%) studied.…”

Effects of chronic alcohol consumption on expression levels of APP and Aβ-producing enzymes

“…Chronic alcoholism results in global brain atrophy with typical points of predilection for neurotoxic effects (16). Alcohol can also induce cortical and subcortical cerebral atrophy (15,16), atrophic changes in the cerebellum (17), enlargement of the cerebrospinal fluid space (15,18), and hippocampal volume loss (16,(19)(20)(21). Moreover, genetic factors (22), gender (23), age (24), amount of consumed ethanol, and the duration of alcohol consumption (25) may all affect the degree of alcohol-related brain damage.…”

Does an Increase in Sulcal or Ventricular Fluid Predict Where Brain Tissue Is Lost?

“…Their finding initiated the search with neuroimaging tools for the location of brain tissue, assumed to have been lost in these patients. Other reports of enlarged ventricles or cortical sulci on magnetic resonance (MR) or CT images followed for other diagnoses, including Alzheimer's disease,2·3 chronic alcoholic abuse, 4 • 5 as well as for those infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). 6 • 7…”