SIGNIFICANT REVERSIBILITY OF ALCOHOLIC BRAIN SHRINKAGE WITHIN 3 WEEKSOF ABSTINENCE

Chronic alcoholism is often associated with brain shrinkage or atrophy . During recent years, it has been demonstrated that this shrinkage is , at least in part, reversible when abstinence is maintained. There ar e different hypotheses concerning the mechanisms for this reversibilit y, but many questions are still open. Especially the time conditions f or these reversible changes are subject of discussion. Twenty-eight ma le patients with severe alcohol dependence were investigated in a comp uted tomographic study at the beginning of abstinence and 3 weeks late r. Planimetric evaluation of 5 selected slices revealed a significant decrease in liquor areas and an increase of brain volume. The densitom etric analysis showed an increase in brain tissue density. In a multip le regression approach it was shown that the reversibility was mostly influenced by the age of the patients. Our results support neither the hypothesis of an increase in brain water as the most important princi ple for reversibility in alcoholic brain shrinkage nor the hypothesis of augmented dendritic growth. Other mechanisms like reduced (during c hronic intoxication) and normalized (during abstinence) cerebral hemop erfusion have to be considered as possible mechanisms for the reversib ility of alcoholic brain shrinkage.