Impairment of Memory after Prolonged Alcohol Consumption in Mice

Abstract

The association of chronic excessive ethanol consumption with anatomical and functional brain impairment has long been observed by clinicians. It is controversial whether this association in some or all patients is merely an unrelated coexistence of alcoholism with other degenerative brain disorders or whether an actual cause-effect relationship exists. If chronic alcohol consumption were truly related to mental impairment, the question arises if impaired brain function is a cause or a result of chronic excessive alcohol consumption (Goodwin and Hill, 1974). Assuming that chronic ethanol consumption is indeed the cause of CNS impairment, it can be postulated that malnutrition that may accompany chronic alcoholism, rather than alcohol per se, is the cause (Victor, Adams, and Collins, 1971). Alternatively, ethanol itself, alone or in conjunction with malnutrition, could cause CNS impairment (Freund, 1973).