Another advantage of in vivo MR tools is the facility to conduct behavioral experiments concurrently with imaging, so as to determine brain structure–function relationships. Combined neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies suggest that the amnesia observed in KS may be caused by interruption of a complex diencephalic–hippocampal circuitry that includes thalamic nuclei and mamillary bodies, rather than through an insult to a single node in the circuit such as the hippo campus.94 This hypothesis has received support from a study using a novel ‘resting state’ functional MRI analysis, which demonstrated that improvement in memory function in patients recovering from WE parallels the level of mammillothalamic ‘functional connectivity’.95 Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which is particularly useful in the characterization of the integrity of white matter microstructure, supports a positive correlation between disruption of the microstructural integrity of the corpus callosum and deficits in visuospatial performance, gait and balance.81,96–98 In addition to confirming the contribution of cerebellar white matter volume loss (especially in the vermis) to ataxia in patients with chronic alcoholism, combined brain imaging and neuropsychological methods have demonstrated the importance of frontocerebellar
