Prior neuroimaging studies have shown alcoholism-related damage to the frontal lobes and cerebellum.
Yet even though these regions are involved in language processing, alcoholics' language skills appear to be relatively spared from alcohol's damaging effects. A new study suggests that alcoholics develop "compensatory mechanisms" to maintain their language skills despite alcohol's damages… compensation which may, in turn, have a restrictive effect on other processes.
Results will be published in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.
"We believe there are certain neural substrates associated with the preserved mechanisms of language processing in alcoholics," said Jean-Luc Martinot, director of research and psychiatrist at INSERM/CEA/Université Paris sud/Université Paris Descartes, and corresponding author for the study. "We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate if alcoholics develop a different pattern of neural activity that supports their language processing."
Martinot and his colleagues had 12 alcoholic males (who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - IV criteria) and 12 healthy males (or "controls") perform an auditory language task while receiving an fMRI scan.
Results indicated comparable performances – such as error rates and response times – by the two groups. However, the alcoholic group exhibited greater fMRI responses in the left middle frontal gyrus, the right superior frontal gyrus, and the cerebellar vermis relative to the control group.