BOOKS

Cerebral deficits in alcoholism. D. Adrian Wilkinson,ed.Toronto: Addiction Research Foundation, 33Russell Street,1982 (PPI59, 16x 24cm; $USI7) ISBN 0 88868 0716. The long-term effect of alcohol on the brain is a subject which is becoming more and more pertinent as the world increases its consumption of alcoholic beverages. Soon, when governments realize the enormous social and fmancial costs of widespread alcohol abuse, it will become as emotionally and politically charged a subject as that of cigarettes and smoking. This book is a welledited version of a symposium held in Toronto in 1979 to address the question of alcohol-relatedbrain damage. It contains seven principal papers from well known scientific groups in Canada and the United States. The papers discuss the epidemiological and neuropsychiatric aspects of alcoholrelated brain damage. There is a good deal of repetition of the neuropsychiatric data in the various chapters, but these data, though repetitive, are nevertheless remarkably consistent in the studies which relate functional impairment to radiological morphology and to the extent of neuropsychological deficits. The individual authors take a fairly uniform approach, in that they all see similar problems and limitations in their methodologies. The common conclusion, that the ultimate goal is "to identify the precise nature of the aetiological mechanisms" of alcohol-related brain damage, highlights the fact that more emphasis should be placed on pathological studies of human and experimental animal material. Other important, relatively recent concepts that are examined in the book include . the reversibility of cerebral "shrinkage" and neuropsychological deficits in a proportion of people who abstain from alcohol, and the good experimental evidence in mice and rats that alcohol itself causes neuronal damage. While this book represents an attempt to [ review some of the recent progress made in this area of research, it should be noted that most of the papers have a strong neuropsychological bias. References are extensive and up-to-date and the authors have included very practical research recommendations in their conclusions. The book will be useful to those who have a professional interest in alcohol and its effect on the brain, whether they be epidemiologists, clinicians or social workers. It may also be of some interest to others who are concerned about the extent of alcoholrelated brain damage in our community today. CLNE HARPER, Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, WA 6001.