Chronic Smoking Is Associated With Differential Neurocognitive Recovery in Abstinent Alcoholic Patients: A Preliminary Investigation

Abstract

These preliminary results suggest that chronic smoking may modulate neurocognitive recovery in abstinent alcoholic patients. More generally, chronic smoking may impact neurocognition in other conditions where is it a prevalent behavior.

Postural Stability in Cigarette Smokers and During Abstinence from Alcohol

“…Additionally, the lack of significant increases observed in sALC may indicate lower white matter microstructural integrity of pathways interconnecting the basal ganglia and cerebellum or those providing proprioceptive and/or vestibular input. As indicated by our previous longitudinal research on the neurobiological and neurocognitive effects of smoking in various populations (Durazzo et al, 2012a; Durazzo et al, 2013; Durazzo et al, 2006a; Durazzo et al, 2007b; Gazdzinski et al, 2010; Gazdzinski et al, 2008; Mon et al, 2009; Pennington et al, 2013), this new report provides additional impetus for studying the potentially beneficial effects of smoking cessation on neurobiology, cognition, and balance in alcohol use disorders and other conditions with high smoking comorbidities.…”

“…Given the lack of studies with larger samples in this area, our previous work on the effects of smoking on postural stability in normal controls and ALC (Durazzo et al, 2006a; Durazzo et al, 2012b; Durazzo et al, 2007b; Pennington et al, 2013) as well as the empirical (Cargiulo, 2007; Jahn et al, 2010; Stolze et al, 2008) and intuitive relevance of balance to quality-of-life and safety in everyday tasks, long-term assessment of a large cohort with repeated ataxia measures may advance our understanding of brain-behavior relationships following excessive alcohol consumption. Therefore, the goal of this study was to assess the effects of chronic smoking on postural stability in a large cohort of ALC over an average of 34 weeks of abstinence from alcohol and in matched non-alcoholic controls.…”

Smoking and increased Alzheimer's disease risk: A review of potential mechanisms

“…110, 113–118 Smoking trsAUD also showed significantly less recovery than non-smoking trsAUD in: a) brain metabolite markers of neuronal integrity and cell membrane turnover/synthesis in the frontal and medial temporal lobes, frontal gray matter (GM) perfusion and microstructural integrity in the frontal, temporal and parietal white matter (WM), as well as in neurocognition, over 1-month of abstinence, 119–122 and b) multiple domains of neurocognition over 1 123 and 9–12 months of abstinence. 124 Recently, we also observed that smoking trsAUD relative to non-smoking trsAUD had thinner cortex and lower N-acetylaspartate levels (marker of neuronal integrity), in anterior frontal and temporal regions at entry into treatment. 125 Recent analyses also indicated that smoking trsAUD showed greater age-related volume loss than non-smoking trsAUD in the anterior frontal regions and the insula, as well as poorer performance with increasing age on measures of learning and memory, cognitive efficiency, executive functions, processing speed, and fine motor skills at 1-month of abstinence.…”

Impact of HIV infection and alcohol on cognition: a review

“…Alcoholics who are active smokers have been found to have worse cross-sectional cognitive performances 45 and to recover less well over time after periods of abstinence. 46 Because of the potentially confounding effects of medical, psychiatric, and substance abuse comorbidities associated with chronic alcoholism, some investigators have focused on studying sober social drinkers. The results from such studies have also been somewhat contradictory, with some reporting definite cognitive impairment, whereas others finding no differences between abstinent social drinkers and controls.…”