Alcohol and central nervous system

Abstract

The effects of pathologic patterns of alcohol use on the Central Nervous System (CNS) are a wellestablished fact, although not all have received a satisfactory explanation. The symptoms can be felt at any level of the neural axis, including the brain, peripheral nerves and muscles. Cranio-encephalic traumatism (CET) from severe car accidents caused by drunk drivers should also be mentioned as an unfortunate after-effect of alcohol abuse on the CNS.Genetic factors are another important determinant of the risk for the pathogenesis of the group of symptoms that together are characteristic or indicative of this specific condition (alcoholism), including a person's inward disposition toward alcoholism. Our aim in this chapter is to list the most important complications of alcohol intake on the CNS, considered to be indispensable knowledge for all clinicians. Although diagnostic confirmation, treatment and follow-up of several of the complications mentioned in this chapter are usually within the province of the neurologist, the internist or general physician is often the first to evaluate the patient and should be familiar enough with head and spine injury to formulate the initial diagnosis and treatment of the disorder by some remedial or curative process; this two-pronged approach has proved to involve a change in the forecast of the probable course of several affections of the CNS by alcohol abuse, especially of the possibility for recovery.