Only afewstudieshaveassessedcommunitysamplesof
untreatedsocialdrinkers.TheCardiovascularHealthStudy
(Mukamal etal.,2001) andtheAtherosclerosisRiskinCommu-
nities Study(Ding etal.,2004) foundpositiveassociations
between lowtomoderatealcoholdrinkingandbrainatrophy,
using ventricularsizeasamarkerofbrainatrophy.Comparisonof
light-to-moderatewithheavyalcoholdrinkersshowedabnormal-
ities inboththegrayandwhitemattervolumes(de Bruinetal.,
2005a,2005b;Takietal.,2004,2006), albeitlessprominentthan
in individualswithalcoholdependence.Inthe Takietal.(2006)
study,basedon405Japanesemaleindividualswithnoalcohol
dependence (mean¼4.872.3 drinksperweek,range¼1–7 ),the
graymattervolumesofthebilateralmiddlefrontalgyrishoweda
significant negativecorrelationwithlifetimealcoholintake,with
greaterreductioninthosewhowereheavieralcoholdrinkers.
However,inaJapanesesample(114malesand97females;mean
age¼37.4,S.D.¼13.5,range¼21–72)oflighttomoderatealcohol