A CONTROLLED-STUDY OF CORTICAL GRAY-MATTER AND VENTRICULAR CHANGES INALCOHOLIC MEN OVER A 5-YEAR INTERVAL

Background: We report on structural brain changes during a 5-year peri od in healthy control and alcoholic men. Methods: Alcoholic patients ( n=16), from an initial group of 58 who underwent brain magnetic resona nce imaging scanning while in treatment, were rescanned with the same acquisition sequence approximately 5 years later. Control subjects (n= 28) spanning the same age range also were scanned twice at a comparabl e interval. Changes in brain volume were corrected for error due to di fferences in head placement between scans and expressed as slopes (cub ic centimeters per year), percentage of change over baseline for the c ontrol subjects, and standardized change for the alcoholic patients, T he alcoholic patients varied considerably in the percentage of time th at symptoms of alcohol dependence were pre sent and in the amount of a lcohol consumed during follow-up. Results: The cortical gray matter di minished in volume over time in the control subjects, most prominently in the prefrontal cortex, while the lateral and third ventricles enla rged. The alcoholic patients show similar age-related changes with a g reater rate of gray matter volume loss than the control subjects in th e anterior superior temporal lobe. The amount of alcohol consumed duri ng follow-up predicted the rate of cortical gray matter volume loss, a s well as sulcal expansion. The rate of ventricular enlargement in alc oholic patients Who maintained virtual sobriety was comparable to that in the control subjects. Conclusions: During a 5-year period, brain v olume shrinkage is exaggerated in the prefrontal cortex in normal agin g with additional loss in the anterior superior temporal cortex in alc oholism. The association of cortical gray matter volume reduction with alcohol consumption over time suggests that continued alcohol abuse r esults in progressive brain tissue volume shrinkage.