Objective: This study investigated whether alcoholic women manifest deficit
s in cortical gray and white matter volumes and ventricular enlargement sim
ilar to those seen in alcoholic men.
Method: Volumetric measures of intracranium, cortical gray matter, white ma
tter and sulci, and lateral and third ventricles were obtained from magneti
c resonance images of 42 women and 44 men with DSM-III-R alcoholism and age
-matched healthy comparison groups (37 women and 48 men). Groups of alcohol
ic men and women were matched on age and length of sobriety, but men had a
2.5 times higher lifetime alcohol consumption than women.
Results: Women, regardless of diagnosis, had less cortical gray and white m
atter and smaller third ventricles than men, consistent with sex-related di
fferences in intracranial volume. Alcoholics had larger volumes of cortical
sulci and lateral and third ventricles than comparison subjects. Diagnosis
-by-sex interactions for cortical white matter and sulcal volumes were due
to abnormalities in alcoholic men but not alcoholic women, relative to same
-sex comparison subjects. This interaction persisted for cortical sulci aft
er covarying for lifetime alcohol consumption. Slopes relating cortical gra
y matter and sulcal volumes to age were steeper in alcoholic than in compar
ison men. Slopes relating lateral ventricle volume to age were steeper in a
lcoholic than in comparison women. In alcoholic women, longer sobriety was
associated with larger white matter volumes.
Conclusions: Alcoholic men and women show different brain morphological def
icits, relative to same-sex comparison subjects. However, age and alcoholis
m interact in both sexes, which puts all older alcoholics at particular ris
k for the negative sequelae of alcoholism.