Reduced Cortical Gray Matter in Long-Term Abstinent Alcoholics

Background The harmful effects of alcohol dependence on the structure and function of the human brain have been well documented. However, there is an increasing body of evidence suggesting that the detrimental cognitive effects caused by alcohol can be at least partially reversed with long-term abstinence. We have previously shown that alcoholics with sufficiently long periods of abstinence do not exhibit cognitive deficiencies in many of the areas associated with alcoholism, with the notable exception of the spatial processing domain. Cortical gray matter can be divided into different regions based on function using the Talairach atlas, from which region of interest masks can be created for volumetric measurements. Although application of atlas-based regions of interest (ROIs) is a common method for performing tissue volumetry in MRI, accurately delineating the cortical sheet in the requisite area is not a simple matter because of the wide variation in cortical infolding. We have developed and applied a technique that corrects for many of the shortcomings of the conventional method of volumetry and applied it to a set of middle-aged long-term abstinent alcoholics and nonalcoholic controls.