Ev. Sullivan et al., Longitudinal changes in cognition, gait, and balance in abstinent and relapsed alcoholic men: Relationships to changes in brain structure, NEUROPSYCHL, 14(2), 2000, pp. 178-188
Chronic alcoholism is associated with cognitive and motor deficits, and the
re is evidence for reversibility with sobriety. Alcoholic men were examined
after 1 month of sobriety and 2 to 12 months later with cognitive and moto
r tests and magnetic resonance imaging. in this naturalistic study, 20 alco
holic participants had abstained and 22 had resumed drinking at retesting.
Abstainers sustained greater improvement than relapsers on tests of delayed
recall of drawings, visuospatial function, attention, gait, and balance. S
hrinkage in 3rd ventricle volume across all participants significantly corr
elated with improvement in nonverbal short-term memory. Additional brain st
ructure-function relationships, most involving shortterm memory, were obser
ved when analyses were restricted to alcoholic men who had maintained compl
ete abstinence, were light relapsers for at least 3 months, or had consumed
no more than 10 drinks prior to follow-up testing. Thus, alcoholic men who
maintain abstinence can show substantial functional improvement that is re
lated to improvement in brain structure condition.