UC San Diego

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain was performed on a group of 24 recently detoxified, male alcoholics approximately 1 month after their date of last drink. The imaging was repeated 3 months later, at which point 9 subjects had resumed drinking and 15 had maintained abstinence. Contrasts between these two drinking groups revealed that, despite comparable baseline values, the Abstainers exhibited volumetric white matter increases and cerebrospinal fluid reductions over the follow-up interval, whereas the Drinkers did not show significant change on either of these MRI indices. These results provide the first evidence suggestive of significant volumetric white matter increase with abstinence.