Relationships among aging, IQ, and intracranial volume in alcoholics and control subjects.

The current article examined the relationships among aging, intelligence, intracranial volume, and brain shrinkage in alcoholics and nonalcoholic controls. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure intracranial and cerebral volumes in 146 subjects with alcohol use disorders and 42 comparison subjects who were not alcoholic. The authors' findings show that performance on Block Design decreases as alcoholics age, and this decrease is predicted by brain shrinkage.