When applied to alcohol research, neuropathological and imaging techniques have helped to provide cumulative evidence of brain abnormalities in alcoholics, such as atrophy6 of nerve cells (i.e., neurons) and brain shrinkage (Hunt and Nixon 1993). Brain shrinkage appears as abnormal widening of the grooves (i.e., sulci) and fissures on the brain’s surface or enlargement of the fluid-filled cavities deep inside the brain (i.e., the ventricles). Regions of the brain that are especially vulnerable to damage after years of chronic alcoholism include the cerebellum, the limbic system (including the hippocampus and amygdala), the diencephalon (including the thalamus and hypothalamus), and the cerebral cortex (see figures 2 and 3).
