Taken together, these results suggest nonmnemonic and mnemonic deficits in chronic alcoholism are associated with dysfunction in dissociable neural systems, including the frontocerebellar and Papez circuits, both of which are affected in chronic alcoholism (Le Berre et al., 2014; Oscar-Berman & Hutner, 1993; Pitel et al., 2007). To the extent that ataxia measures reflect cerebellar integrity and their relation with executive functions of attention, working memory, and production, these results implicate underlying dysfunction in frontocerebellar systems (cf., E, Chen, Ho, & Desmond, 2014; Sullivan, 2003). And to the extent that the thiamine measure assesses dietary status (Guerrini & Thomson, 2009), with its known relevance to neural structures included in Papez circuit (Thomson & Marshall, 2006) and its selective relation to mnemonic ability (cf., Le Berre et al., 2014; Pitel et al., 2007), these results suggest underlying limbic-diencephalon system dysfunction.
