This is an application for an ADAMHA Senior Scientist Award (SSA). The SSA would permit the PI (a) to devote all of her research efforts to alcoholism; (b)to expand her research and mentoring activities concerned with gender issues in alcoholism; and (c) to gain valuable experience with structural and functional neuroimaging techniques. In conjunction with 2RO1 AA 07112-09, investigations are planned to examine changes in affect (emotion) and conation (intention) in abstinent alcoholics. Secondary aims of the research are to expand studies of age-related changes and gender differences in emotional and intentional functions. The importance of the research is fourfold: (1) Putative sites of alcohol-related brain damage involve separate frontal systems which are tied to different perceptual/cognitive aspects of emotional and intentional behaviors; (2) gender differences in alcohol- related neurobehavioral functions are ripe for experimental exploration; (3) the literature on whether emotional changes have reciprocal effects on perception and cognition in alcoholism is equivocal and controversial; and (4) even though affective and conative abnormalities have been clinically apparent in alcoholic groups, neuropsychological studies have focused primarily on cognitive changes unrelated to emotion and intention. In the proposed experiments we will enlist the participation of right- handed male and female research subjects ranging in age from 20 to 75 years. The experimental groups will include abstinent alcoholics with and without Korsakoff's syndrome. Patterns and levels of performances by the alcoholics will be compared to those of age-matched nonalcoholic subjects, in order to evaluate the ways in which behavioral consequences of aging and alcoholism are parallel, divergent, or interactive. Additionally, patients with right-frontal or bilateral frontal lobe damage from cerebrovascular accidents will provide the necessary control comparisons for neurobehavioral changes linked directly to focal brain damage. These groups were chosen specifically to clarify frontal system contributions to deficits of Korsakoff and non-Korsakoff alcoholics. We also will be able to evaluate hypotheses about greater right- than left-hemisphere functional decline in the alcoholic and aging groups, and in women compared to men. It is expected that results of the proposed studies will show clear evidence of frontal-mediated affective and conative changes in alcoholics (most notably in the Korsakoff patients), but that these changes will not be conspicuous in aging populations uncomplicated by alcoholism. By contrast, certain aspects of perceptual functioning will be compromised by aging - whether or not a history of alcohol abuse exists. Finally, women will display different performance patterns than men.
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