Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 12, 1993 TAG: 9311120042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
The findings, based on detailed examinations of the brains of alcoholics who died, suggest it may be easier than previously thought to restore brain function damaged by heavy drinking.
Dead nerve cells do not regenerate and are not replaced in the brain, but the fibers that link them will sometimes regrow after being damaged.
"It gives some hope in the sense that it might be possible to restore at least some function" of the brain, Dr. Bente Pakkenberg, one of the investigators, said Thursday. She is director of the Neurological Research Laboratory at the Bartholin Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The study appears in Saturday's issue of the British medical journal Lancet.
"Theirs is a very careful study," said Dr. Timothy Peters, an expert on alcoholism and professor of clinical biochemistry at Kings College in London. "It's very useful and encouraging to people like ourselves who look after people with alcohol problems that the cerebral damage is potentially reversible."
The Danish scientists compared the brains of 11 male severe alcoholics who died to those of 11 dead men who were not alcoholics.
Pakkenberg said her team counted precisely the number of nerve cells in tissue-thin slices of the neocortex, the outermost region of the brain.
The number of nerve cells was "almost identical in the two groups," Pakkenberg said - 23.2 billion among alcoholics, compared with 23.4 billion for the others. That is a difference of less than 1 percent.
But compared to the brains of non-alcoholics, the alcoholics' showed significant damage to their white matter - the cells and fibers that support and nourish neurons, which carry signals in the brain. The alcoholics' white matter was reduced by 11 percent in the outer brain region and 30 percent in a deeper area that contains the memory center.
"This could provide the basis for functional impairment," Pakkenberg said.
She said scientists do not know the exact mechanism by which the intricate web of skinny white fibers regrow and reconnect nerve cells. But her study may provide a path for future studies.
The results offer a glimmer of hope that abstaining from drinking may allow the brain to heal itself, Pakkenberg said. Or perhaps scientists may one day design drugs that speed recuperation, she said.
by CNB