Impairments in executive functioning in alcoholics have been associated with underlying structural abnormalities in frontocerebellar circuitry (Moselhy et al., 2001; Sullivan, 2003; Sullivan et al., 2003; Chanraud et al., 2007; Oscar-Berman and Marinkovic, 2007; Oscar-Berman et al., 2009). Significant volume reductions have been reported in the frontal lobes (Pfefferbaum et al., 1992; Agartz et al., 1999; Kubota et al., 2001; Chanraud et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2012) including reduced gray matter in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Chanraud et al., 2007; Makris et al., 2008) and anterior cingulate cortex (Chanraud et al., 2007). Analyses of cortical thickness in alcoholics have demonstrated that the frontal lobes are particularly vulnerable to thinning (Fortier et al., 2011). With DTI scans, researchers have found white matter abnormalities in the cingulum bundle, superior longitudinal fasciculi, and internal and external capsules (Harris et al., 2008; Pfefferbaum et al., 2009; Rosenbloom et al., 2009; Schulte et al., 2012b).
