Hippocampus volume loss due to chronic heavy drinking.
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.
Beresford
Thomas P
TP
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
Arciniegas
David B
DB
Alfers
Julie
J
Clapp
Lori
L
Martin
Brandon
B
Du
Yiping
Y
Liu
Dengfeng
D
Shen
Dinggang
D
Davatzikos
Christos
C
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