Individuals with a history of long-term uncomplicated alcoholism appear free from impairments in certain basic neuropsychological functions. Some researchers have suggested that the lack of detectable deficits in these seemingly spared domains could be due to compensatory recruitment of alternative brain regions to facilitate cognitive processes (Sullivan and Pfefferbaum, 2005; Oscar-Berman and Marinkovic, 2007; Chanraud et al., 2013). In support of this notion, fMRI studies have demonstrated altered patterns of neural activation among alcoholics, with reduced activity in some regions (Chanraud et al., 2010; Chanraud et al., 2011), but simultaneous increases in activity in others (Pfefferbaum et al., 2001a; Desmond et al., 2003; Chanraud-Guillermo et al., 2009; Chanraud et al., 2013). As such, it can be difficult to distinguish between functions that have been truly spared and those that appear unimpaired due to compensatory mechanisms or other recovery of function.
