The Study:

     This first of its kind MEG study involves patients with severe cases of alcoholism, who are in the early stages of recovery.    The patients are willfully seeking and actively receiving treatment for this disease at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center.  They are also willing research subjects in the Brain Sciences Center’s MEG alcoholism study.

     The study will involve a group of ten volunteer subjects from the Addictive Disorder Unit at the Minneapolis VAMC.  The subjects’ last drink will have been taken 24 hours prior to their participation in the project, and their involvement continues for seven consecutive days, as images and data are collected with the MEG instrument.   Subsequently, the subjects are imaged once a week for the next five weeks.

     The participants do not perform any tasks, and are imaged in a relaxed state while lying on the bed of the MEG chamber. The investigators expect to see a change in the subjects’ brain activity as their recovery progresses.

WHY MEG/ALCOHOL STUDY?

     The statistics are alarming: about 14 million people in the U.S., or about 1 in 13 Americans, suffer from alcoholism or alcohol abuse. Costs from the loss of productivity and heath care expenses, associated to alcohol, add up to $185 billion dollars a year.  Half of all traffic fatalities are alcohol related.

     Despite all that is known about this devastating illness, the problems of alcohol abuse persist.  Medical science needs to find innovative ways to gain new perspectives on helping society gain ground on this pervasive addiction.

     The goal in the BSC-VA Medical Center study is to employ MEG technology to view possible sequential brain changes over time, while the patient is in the process of recovery.  Researchers are interested in seeing the interactions of the populations of brain cells, as viewed within various stages of the experiment.

     Some of the questions investigators hope to answer are:

• What effect does heavy, long-term alcohol use have on the brain?
• Is there a residual effect in the brain?
• if so, how long does that last?

APPLICATIONS:

     The results of this study could lead to changes in the treatment of patients with this disease.  This initial experiment will demonstrate how well MEG technology can be applied to future studies of alcoholism.