These studies employ sensitive experimental paradigms to detect subtle differences in the behavior of alcoholics compared to that of healthy nonalcoholic controls and neurological patients who have incurred brain damage from other than alcohol-related etiologies. Behavioral data are integrated with brain imaging findings conducted with colleagues from Harvard Medical School.
These studies employ structural and functional MRI technology to acquire scans on clinical and healthy populations in order to determine what abnormalities can be associated with long-term chronic alcoholism. For the most part, research participants in the Neurobehavioral Studies described above are also scanned in order to integrate behavioral and brain findings.
Among the ongoing projects are the following:
- "Affective and cognitive changes in alcoholism: Recognition of faces and words."
- "Effects of alcoholism and aging on facial emotional discrimination abilities."
- "Comparisons of Korsakoff and non-Korsakoff alcoholics on neuropsychological tests of prefrontal brain function."
- "Relationship between dopaminergic neurotransmission, alcoholism, and reward deficiency syndrome."
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