Finally, our results show the advantage for men over women in spatial processing, consistent with the literature (Halpern, 1997; Yonker et al., 2005), an advantage that did not differ between TNAD and NAC. Yonker and colleagues (2005) found that the spatial processing advantage for men over women decreased as chronic alcohol dose increased from moderate to heavy, while our sample of TNAD showed no such effect. It should be noted that Yonker and colleagues’ (2005) sample of heavy drinking men had a mean age of 56.3, likely associated with a greater lifetime alcohol burden and less reserve capacity than our TNAD men who had a mean age of 32.3. In addition, our results revealed no significant Group × Gender interactions in NP domain performance, failing to show differential effects of alcohol dependence on cognitive performance in men and women. This lack of cognitive differences suggests that, in treatment-naïve samples at least, women do not suffer more severe cerebral consequences of alcohol dependence than do men.
