Although differences in outcomes observed in neuropsychological and brain abnormalities are complicated by the fact that the course of recovery can be dependent on the extent of impairment at the time of drinking cessation, abstinent alcoholics have shown improvements in neuropsychological functioning with continued sobriety (Kish et al., 1980; Oscar-Berman et al., 2004; Rosenbloom et al., 2004; Erickson and White, 2009). Likewise, abstinence is accompanied by brain structural changes, such as increased cortical thickness in the brain’s extended reward and oversight system (Durazzo et al., 2011). Processes proposed to account for recovery of cognitive functioning in alcoholism include neural repair (regeneration) and reorganization, such that new or additional neural networks are recruited to accomplish a task (Crews et al., 2005; Sullivan and Pfefferbaum, 2005; Chanraud et al., 2013).
