of alcoholic brain morphology find abnormal reduced brain volumes of grey and white matter across multiple regions of the brain. However, neuronal loss, likely, does not account for all the volume loss, although the superior frontal cortex (Harper and Kril, 1989) and orbital frontal cortex (Miguel-Hidalgo et al., 2006) show neuronal loss The frontal lobes are the most insulted region in the alcoholic brain (Rosenbloom and Pfefferbaum, 2008; Sullivan and Pfefferbaum, 2005). Chronic alcoholism is associated with impaired judgment, blunted affect, poor insight, social withdrawal, reduced motivation, distractability, attentional and impulse control deficits (Oscar-Berman and Hutner, 1993; Parsons, 1987). It has been proposed that progressive increases in ethanol consumption lead to alterations in brain structure that reduce behavioral control promoting further alcohol abuse and neurodegeneration (Crews et al., 2004). Drug-and ethanol-induced frontal cortical degeneration and loss of executive function contribute to an imbalance between reflective, attention-controlled decision making, frontal cortical functions, and a hyperactive limbic system that drives impulsive behavior through involuntary signals (Bechara, 2005) (Fig. 1) driving both the progressive and persistent nature of addiction (Crews et al., 2005).
