title: Hippocampus volume loss due to chronic heavy drinking.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  No clear consensus exists regarding the effect of sustained, heavy drinking on hippocampal volume. Our prior work hypothesized significantly lowered total hippocampus volumes in heavy chronically drinking alcohol-dependent (AD) subjects compared with light-drinking nondependent control subjects matched for age and gender.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using a series of applicable exclusion criteria culled from previous published studies, we measured hippocampal volumes from MRI scan data acquired on a 3T scanner and subjected those data to automated volume analysis blind to the drinking history.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Comparison with AD test (n=8) and non-AD control (n=8) subjects found significant lessening in total (p=0.020) and left (p=0.010) hippocampal volumes with a near-significant difference on the right (p=0.051). Linear regression demonstrated that neither total brain volume nor intracranial volume affected the hippocampus measures.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These data support the view that heavy drinking exerts a unique and selectively injurious effect on the hippocampus. Further study in larger samples must verify this in a search for possible mechanisms of injury.
authors.affiliation: Mental Health Service, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine, 1055 Clermont Street, Denver, CO 80220, USA. thomas.beresford@uchsc.edu
authors.forename: Thomas P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Beresford
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Arciniegas
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Alfers
authors.forename: Lori
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Clapp
authors.forename: Brandon
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Yiping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Dengfeng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Dinggang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Davatzikos
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012886:Skull / Q000473:pathology