From: judgebean23x@gmail.com   
      
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   Advancement of Science   
   NEWS   
   PUBLIC RELEASE: 18-NOV-2014   
      
   Chronic alcohol intake can damage white matter pathways across the entire brain   
   ALCOHOLISM: CLINICAL & EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH   
      
          
   Chronic misuse of alcohol results in measurable damage to the brain.   
   A new study uses high-resolution structural magnetic resonance (MR) scans to   
   compare the brains of individuals with a history of alcoholism versus those of   
   healthy light drinkers.   
   The abstinent alcoholics showed pronounced reductions in frontal and superior   
   white matter tracts.   
   Chronic misuse of alcohol results in measurable damage to the brain. Chronic   
   drinking may be particularly damaging to the integrity of frontal white matter   
   tracts, which can interfere with cognitive and inhibitory control that, in   
   turn, is important to    
   achieve and maintain abstinence. A new study has used high-resolution   
   structural magnetic resonance (MR) scans to determine the brain's regional   
   vulnerability to chronic alcohol abuse, finding that abstinent alcoholics have   
   reductions in white matter    
   pathways across the entire brain.   
      
   Results will be published in the December 2014 online-only issue of   
   Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at   
   Early View.   
      
   "The idea that alcohol affects the brain has been established for decades,"   
   said Catherine Brawn Fortier, a neuropsychologist and researcher at the VA   
   Boston Healthcare System, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, as   
   well as corresponding    
   author for the study. "Before advances in neuroimaging technology, the degree   
   to which alcohol affects the brain across different levels of alcohol use, and   
   how it may interact with other health factors, could only be inferred from   
   behavior and through    
   post-mortem studies. We now can use neuroimaging techniques to see, in vivo,   
   that alcohol has wide ranging effects across the entire brain that contribute   
   to a wide range of changes in psychological abilities and intellectual   
   functions."   
      
   "Alcohol use among active military and veterans is a major issue in our care   
   for them at VA Boston Healthcare System and nationwide," said Terence M.   
   Keane, a professor of psychiatry and psychology, as well as assistant dean for   
   research at Boston    
   University School of Medicine. "Many returning veterans use alcohol to cope   
   with PTSD and other wounds of war. Dr. Fortier's study helps us understand how   
   chronic, heavy alcohol misuse affects brain function, which informs our   
   treatment of this group."   
      
   "The brain is usually divided into two broad kinds of tissues: gray matter or   
   cortex consisting of neurons, the critical cells that support brain function;   
   and white matter, the connections among large groups of those cells,"   
   explained Fortier. "We now    
   know that alcohol impacts both gray and white matter, with the greatest impact   
   affecting parts of the brain called the frontal lobes. These brain areas are   
   critical to learning new information and, even more importantly, in   
   self-regulation, impulse    
   control, and the modification of all complicated human behaviors. In other   
   words, the very parts of the brain that may be most important for controlling   
   problem drinking are damaged by alcohol, and the more alcohol consumed, the   
   greater the damage."   
      
   Frontal white matter tracts are the pathways that connect the frontal lobes to   
   the rest of the brain, added Fortier. "The frontal cortex is the integration   
   center for all other parts of the brain that are important to behavior and   
   cognitive function,"    
   she said. "These pathways support self-monitoring, planning, judgment, and   
   reasoning. Frontal pathways also allow flexibility in learning and memory, and   
   allow us to change and learn new patterns of behavior. Most importantly,   
   frontal pathways underlie    
   impulse control, which is essential to achieve and maintain abstinence."   
      
   Fortier and her colleagues assessed global and regional white matter (WM)   
   microstructure in two groups (n=51) using diffusion MR measures of fractional   
   anisotropy (FA) to create a three-dimensional measurement of white matter   
   tissue: 31 abstinent    
   alcoholics (20 men, 11 women) with an average of 25 years of abuse and   
   approximately five years of sobriety, and 20 nonalcoholic control participants   
   (13 men, 7 women). Study participants were recruited by way of flyers and   
   newspaper advertisements; the    
   mean age of the alcoholic group was 51, and the control group was matched to   
   the alcoholic group with regard to gender, age, education, and estimated   
   intelligence.   
      
   "There were two key findings to our study," said Fortier. "First, recovered   
   alcoholics showed reductions in white matter pathways across the entire brain   
   as compared to healthy light drinkers. This means that the pathways that allow   
   the different parts    
   of their brains to communicate efficiently and effectively are disrupted by   
   alcoholism. Second, the effect of alcohol on the brain appears to be dose   
   specific. Pathology is often thought of as occurring as an all-or-none   
   phenomenon--you either have brain    
   damage or you don't, similar to a stroke. Alcohol, however, is more like   
   sunburn. Our study shows that the damage occurs as a function of quantity and   
   exposure; the more you drink, the greater the damage to key structures of the   
   brain, such as the    
   inferior frontal gyrus, in particular. This part of the brain mediates   
   inhibitory control and decision-making, so tragically, it appears that some of   
   the areas of the brain that are most effected by alcohol are important for   
   self-control and judgment,    
   the very things needed to recover from misuse of alcohol."   
      
   "These results further indicate that individuals at high risk for alcoholism   
   may have differences in their brain structure that mediate this risk," added   
   Keane. "These differences could represent an important biomarker for   
   neurobiological vulnerability    
   to alcoholism that could be used to stop alcoholism earlier in the disease   
   process."   
      
   "It may be that differences in the inferior frontal gyrus are genetically or   
   congenitally determined - rather than a neurotoxic consequence of drinking   
   itself," explained Fortier. "Data from other scientists have supported this   
   idea that individuals at    
   high risk for alcoholism may have a neurobiological vulnerability."   
      
      
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