How to Reverse Brain Damage From Long-Term Alcohol Use

How to Reverse Brain Damage From Long-Term Alcohol Use Addiction Alcohol Use Print Quit Drinking to Reverse Alcoholic Brain Damage New cells can develop for years after quitting alcohol By Buddy T facebook twitter Buddy T is an anonymous writer and founding member of the Online Al-Anon Outreach Committee with decades of experience writing about alcoholism. Learn about our editorial policy Buddy T Medically reviewed by Medically reviewed by Steven Gans, MD on November 22, 2019 Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital. Learn about our Medical Review Board Steven Gans, MD on November 22, 2019 TEK IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images More in Addiction Alcohol Use Binge Drinking Withdrawal and Relapse Children of Alcoholics Drunk Driving Addictive Behaviors Drug Use Nicotine Use Coping and Recovery When people who drink alcohol heavily stop drinking, some of the brain damage that long-time alcohol use can cause may reverse and some memory loss they may experience  may stop. Scientists have established that the shrinkage that alcohol can cause in some regions of the brain that results in cognitive damage  will begin to reverse when alcohol stays out of the body for lengthening periods of time.?? To understand this important news for people recovering from alcoholism, it is key to understand how alcohol affects the brain. Impact of Alcohol on the Brain Doctors and researchers sometimes use the term  alcohol-related cognitive impairment to refer to the damaging impact that repeated excessive alcohol consumption can have on the brain’s ability to function.?? Some of this impact stems directly from alcohol’s poisonous effects on the brain. Areas of the brain most likely to be damaged by alcoholism include the frontal lobeâ€"responsible for higher-level mental skills as the ability to think logically and the ability to exert behavioral controlâ€"and the cerebellum, which gives the brain its ability to control and coordinate muscle movements.?? How Alcohol Damages the Brain How MRI Testing Tracks Brain Recovery In the study published in 2015 in  Addiction Biology, researchers from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and UC San Francisco used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to examine the brains of a group of people who were recovering from alcoholism and abstaining from alcohol.?? Each study participant underwent MRI testing after being  alcohol-freeâ€"for one week, one month and seven and a half months. The researchers conducted multiple scans to track the changing state of the brain over time. The MRI research revealed that alcohol abstinence led to brain volume increases in key areas including the frontal lobe and cerebellum. This involved both gray matter and white matter. When the researchers studied the positive changes in gray matter volume, they concluded that most of these changes occurred in the three-week span between the end of the first week of abstinence and the end of the first month of abstinence. The positive changes in white matter volume occurred at a fairly consistent pace throughout the seven and a half months of abstinence. Birth of New Brain Cells With Alcohol Abstinence Earlier research conducted in 2004 on lab rats at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies was the first to show a burst of new brain cell development as a result of abstinence from chronic alcohol consumption.?? The Bowles research team examined the brain cell growth in adult rats that were given an amount of alcohol over a four-day period that produced alcohol dependence. The researchers found that alcohol dependency slowed  neurogenesis or brain cell development. The research found that new cell growth took place in the brains hippocampus with as little as four to five weeks of alcohol abstinence, including a twofold burst in brain cell growth on the seventh day of being alcohol-free. The Number of Brain Cells Can Continue to Grow as an Adult It was long thought that the number of neurons in the adult brain was established early in life, but it is now known that the adult brain is capable of neurogenesis or the production of new neurons. A study looking at the emergence of new brain cells after abstinence from alcohol found that there were bursts of new cell development in the hippocampus at 48 hours after abstinence. Then there was another burst in the hippocampus and regions of another part of the brain, the cortex, at seven days of being alcohol-free. The Brain Remains Impaired Early in Recovery Since research has shown that the brain is impaired early on in recovery, the medical community has come to understand that it is important to not bombard people seeking alcohol recovery help with too much information early on.?? This can affect the effectiveness of alcoholism treatment programs in the first weeks of recovery and abstinence. Research on lab animals suggests that new brain cell growth can also be promoted by  increased physical activity. How Exercise Can Help With Addiction