Studies of recently detoxified alcoholics (1 – 6 weeks) show abnormally low levels of NAA, inferred from ratios to tCr or amount of underlying tissue, in frontal white matter (Schweinsburg et al., 2001; Schweinsburg et al., 2003; Meyerhoff et al., 2004; Bartsch et al., 2007), frontal gray matter (Jagannathan et al., 1996; Bendszus et al., 2001; Durazzo et al., 2004), thalamus (Jagannathan et al., 1996; Murata et al., 2001), and cerebellum (Jagannathan et al., 1996; Bendszus et al., 2001; Murata et al., 2001; Parks et al., 2002). Likewise, Cho, whether expressed as a ratio to tCr or tissue water, is lower in recently detoxified alcoholics than controls in thalamus (Murata et al., 2001; Durazzo et al., 2004) and cerebellum (Martin et al., 1995; Jagannathan et al., 1996; Bendszus et al., 2001; Murata et al., 2001; Ende et al., 2005; Bartsch et al., 2007). Such changes in the biochemical status of discrete brain regions are reinforced by findings of correlations with performance on various behavioral tasks. For example, low NAA in the cerebellar vermis was related to poor performance on tasks
