The effect of moderate blood alcohol levels on T₁ and T₂ relaxation times in the brains of normal volunteers

Abstract

T1 and T2 measurements of the brains of six human volunteers did not change in the presence of moderate blood alcohol levels.

4.0 T Water Proton T1 Relaxation Times in Normal Human Brain and During Acute Ethanol Intoxication

“…There are several possible explanations for the contradictory findings. The peak BAC achieved in the present study ranged from 63 to 97 mg/dl (tissue concentrations: ϳ13.7-21.0 mM), similar to the range of 46 to 99 mg/dl (ϳ10.0 -21.5 mM) reported by Logsdail et al (1987) but considerably lower than the 143 to 197 mg/dl (ϳ31.0 -42.7 mM) attained by Mander et al (1985). Although the latter investigators reported a water proton T 1 decrease of 1% during acute intoxication in normals, it is unclear whether their measurements had adequate statistical power to detect a change this small given their reported T 1 precision of 2.6% and data from only five subjects.…”

“…This is in agreement with the results of Logsdail et al (1987) but contradicts several other reports (Besson et al, 1981;Hirakawa et al, 1994;Mander et al, 1985;Melgaard, 1983). There are several possible explanations for the contradictory findings.…”

“…Second, although a clinical study reported that water proton T 1 decreases during ethanol intoxication, only alcoholic subjects were studied (Besson et al, 1981), so it is unclear the extent to which the T 1 decrease reflects acute versus chronic effects. To our knowledge only two studies have evaluated the effects on T 1 relaxation times of acute ethanol administration in hu-man controls; one reported a decrease (Mander et al, 1985), whereas the other did not (Logsdail et al, 1987).…”

Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Its Applications in Neuropsychiatry

“…Since the first study demonstrating that T t is increased in chronic alcoholics during the early withdrawal phase and that this is maintained even after the recovery of the acute phase of the illness, several studies have now been carried out that have substantiated these early findings, despite the fact that initially somewhat controversial results were obtained (Smith et al, 1985;Logsdial et al, 1987). Table I summarises the findings of T, and T z changes in response to alcohol administration.…”