Computed-tomography of the brain and neuropsychological assessement of alcoholic patients.

The purpose of the project is to assess the state of the brain of alcoholic patients by means of computerized tomography and by neuropsychological performance and to correlate the findings with the clinical course of alcohol dependence. The investigated group is a consecutive series of 106 patients admitted for treatment of alcoholism and participating in a prospective program of mapping medical, social and psychological characteristics. Cortical changes were diagnosed in 59.6 % of the investigated patients, enlarged lateral ventricles in 33.3 % and an enlarged 3rd ventricle in 48.3 %. With regard to neuropsychological functioning 54.2 % of the sample scored in the mildly to severely impaired region of the Halstead Impairment Index and 63.5 % were considered to show signs of an intellectual impairment in the psychologist's overall assessment of test results. Cortical changes and ventricular enlargement seemed to follow different courses in the investigated group since they were uncorrelated in the sub-group of older patients with long duration of heavy drinking. The correlations between neuropsychological functioning and morphological changes were generally low. However, the results suggest that learning and memory deficits indicate subcortical changes in the brains of alcoholic patients while a high score on the Halstead Impairment Index indicated cortical changes.