Longitudinal changes in cognition, gait, and balance in abstinent and relapsed alcoholic men: Relationships to changes in brain structure

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.