Alcoholism is an addictive disorder with multi faceted biological underpinnings (Box 1). Frequent concomitants of alcoholism are liver disease (steatosis, hepatitis and cirrhosis),1 cardiovascular disease2 and mal nutrition.3 The neurological consequences associated with this addictive disorder include hepatic encephalopathy, Wernicke encephalopathy (WE), Korsakoff syndrome (KS), Marchiafava–Bignami disease (MBD) and central pontine myelinolysis (CPM). Each of these relatively well-characterized alcohol-related CNS disorders is associated with a unique clinical presentation and a discrete neuropathological and neuroradiological signature (Figure 1).4 The structural changes to the brain and functional consequences that occur with chronic alcohol consumption in the absence of diagnosable neuro logical concomitants of alcoholism (that is, in cases of uncomplicated alcoholism) are grouped under the term ‘alcohol-related brain damage’ (ARBD).
