Freund G
Recent Dev Alcohol. 1984;2:203-21. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4684-4661-6_12.
Both biological aging and chronic exposure to alcohol may cause impaired learning and memory in man and animals. The chains of processes beginning with molecular changes that in turn alter electrophysiology and morphology and finally culminate in changes of behavior (individual and social) are largely unknown. While these chains originating with molecular events leading to the same behavioral end result may be totally different, they may also overlap at any one of these levels of biological organization, accentuate, attenuate each other, to branch again and to develop parallel to each other. There is currently some evidence from observations in humans and animals that both aging and chronic alcohol toxicity induce the following changes: brain atrophy measured in vivo by computerized tomography, histological loss of the dendritic tree of neurons in various brain regions including hippocampus and cerebellum, and a variety of chemical changes of brain synaptic function, such as loss of benzodiazepine receptors.
生物衰老和长期饮酒都可能导致人类和动物的学习与记忆受损。从分子变化开始，进而改变电生理学和形态学，最终导致行为（个体和社会行为）变化的一系列过程，在很大程度上尚不为人所知。虽然这些源自分子事件并导致相同行为最终结果的过程链可能完全不同，但它们也可能在生物组织的任何一个层面上重叠、相互增强、相互减弱、再次分支并相互平行发展。目前，来自人类和动物观察的一些证据表明，衰老和慢性酒精中毒都会引发以下变化：通过计算机断层扫描在体内测量的脑萎缩、包括海马体和小脑在内的各个脑区神经元树突的组织学损失，以及脑突触功能的各种化学变化，如苯二氮䓬受体的丧失。
