STAA were abstinent a minimum of six weeks. The study is therefore silent with regard to subcortical volume effects of alcohol and stimulant abuse and dependence in very early abstinence. This might be particularly relevant to our lack of finding any associations of subcortical volumes with days abstinent in STAA. Such effects might be present in the first days and weeks of abstinence. Finally, we acknowledge that we did not actually measure inflammation, but inferred it from the literature, the lack of findings on smaller subcortical volumes in the alcoholic samples DASD, and the comparable or greater severity of functional impairments in alcoholics DASD vs. DAO. Inflammation and atrophy could be more directly inferred from MR spectroscopy studies which could measure subcortical neuronal markers (NAA) and metabolites that reflect inflammation.
