Agartz I, Momenan R, Rawlings R R, Kerich M J, Hommer D W
Section on Electrophysiology and Brain Imaging, Laboratory of Clinical Studies, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1999 Apr;56(4):356-63. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.56.4.356.
Smaller hippocampal volumes have been reported in the brains of alcoholic patients than in those of healthy subjects, although it is unclear if the hippocampus is disproportionally smaller than the brain as a whole. There is evidence that alcoholic women are more susceptible than alcoholic men to liver and cardiac damage from alcohol. It is not known whether the hippocampi of the female brain are more vulnerable to alcohol.
We compared the hippocampal volumes in 52 hospitalized alcoholic men and women with those of 36 healthy nonalcoholic men and women. All subjects were between 27 and 53 years of age. The hippocampal volumes were measured from sagittal T-weighted high-resolution magnetic resonance images.
The alcoholic women had less lifetime drinking and a later age at onset of heavy drinking than alcoholic men. Both alcoholic men and women had significantly smaller right hippocampi and larger cerebrospinal fluid volumes than healthy subjects of the same sex. Only among women were the left hippocampus and the nonhippocampal brain volume also significantly smaller. The proportion of hippocampal volume relative to the rest of the brain volume was the same in alcoholic patients and healthy subjects, in both men and women. The right hippocampus was larger than the left among all subjects. Women demonstrated larger hippocampal volumes relative to total brain volume than men. Psychiatric comorbidity, including posttraumatic stress disorder, did not affect hippocampal volume.
In chronic alcoholism, the reduction of hippocampal volume is proportional to the reduction of the brain volume. Alcohol consumption should be accounted for in studies of hippocampal damage.
据报道，酒精性患者大脑中的海马体体积比健康受试者的小，尽管尚不清楚海马体是否比整个大脑小得不成比例。有证据表明，酒精性女性比酒精性男性更容易受到酒精对肝脏和心脏的损害。目前尚不清楚女性大脑中的海马体是否更容易受到酒精的影响。
我们比较了52名住院的酒精性男性和女性与36名健康的非酒精性男性和女性的海马体体积。所有受试者年龄在27至53岁之间。海马体体积通过矢状位T加权高分辨率磁共振图像测量。
酒精性女性的终生饮酒量较少，开始大量饮酒的年龄比酒精性男性晚。与同性别的健康受试者相比，酒精性男性和女性的右侧海马体均明显较小，脑脊液体积均较大。仅在女性中，左侧海马体和非海马体脑体积也明显较小。酒精性患者和健康受试者的海马体体积相对于大脑其余部分体积的比例相同，无论男性还是女性。所有受试者中右侧海马体均大于左侧。相对于总脑体积，女性的海马体体积比男性大。包括创伤后应激障碍在内的精神共病不影响海马体体积。
在慢性酒精中毒中，海马体体积的减少与脑体积的减少成比例。在海马体损伤的研究中应考虑酒精摄入因素。
