Relative to findings in WKS, research demonstrates mild volume deficits in the mammillary bodies (Shear et al. 1996; Sullivan et al. 1999), hippocampi, and thalami in uncomplicated alcoholics compared with healthy controls (De Bellis et al. 2005; Chanraud et al. 2007; Pitel et al. 2012; Sullivan 2003; van Holst et al. 2012). As shown in figure 5, these structures show a graded effect of volume deficits. That is, volume deficits are greatest in brains of subjects with KS (figure 5C) compared with brains of subjects with uncomplicated alcoholism (figure 5B) and brains unaffected by alcohol (figure 5A). Results suggest that mammillary-body damage is not prerequisite for the development of amnesia in alcoholism (Shear et al. 1996). MR findings also show hippocampal volume deficits in alcoholics compared with healthy controls (Agartz et al. 1999; Beresford et al. 2006; Kurth et al. 2004; Laakso et al. 2000; Sullivan et al. 1995; Wilhelm et al. 2008). Hippocampal volume deficits in alcoholism are influenced by age (Sullivan et al. 1995), even though age-related decline is difficult to detect in cross-sectional studies (Pfefferbaum et al.
