Main description:

From the President of the Research Society on Alcoholism In recent years, increasingly convincing evidence in support of a biobehavioral conceptual model of the etiology of alcoholism has emerged. In this model, the disorder is perceived as arising from the interaction of geneticlbiological vulnerability and psychosocial risk. Drinking, or alcohol-seeking, is a metric trait. Alcoholism, which is a state of abnormally intense alcohol-seeking be havior that, over time, leads to the alcohol dependence syndrome, lies at the extreme, high end of this quantitative measure. Metric traits are influenced by multiple genes; the extent of genetic loading of biological risk for alcoholism would be different in different individuals. Added to this kind of variability is the wide range of options for exposure to the psychosocial risk factors of heavy drinking provided by modern society. Further, environmental prov ocation also changes when life events change. It is not surprising, therefore, from the combination of the kinds of genetic and environmental variability described above that there is a wide array of patterns of expression of the disorder alcoholism, referred to by some as "alcoholisms. " In the search for understanding of underlying mechanisms and rational bases for potential therapy, it is important to focus our attention on the final common pathway of this disorder, alcohol-seeking behavior. This series, ever since its beginning in 1983, has been sensitive to the complexities of the interaction between biological and psychosocial risk factors in alcoholism.

Contents:

I. Alcohol and Memory.- 1 The Chronic Effects of Alcohol on Memory: A Contrast between a Unitary and Dual System Approach.- 2 The Etiology and Neuropathology of Alcoholic Korsakoff's Syndrome: Some Evidence for the Role of the Basal Forebrain.- 3 Cognitive Deficits Related to Memory Impairments in Alcoholism.- 4 Specificity of Memory Deficits in Alcoholism.- 5 Ethanol Intoxication and Memory: Recent Developments and New Directions.- II. Alcohol Treatment and Society.- 6 Inebriety, Doctors, and the State: Alcoholism Treatment Institutions before 1940.- 7 Sociological Perspectives on the Alcoholism Treatment Literature since 1940.- 8 The Social Ecology of Alcohol Treatment in the United States.- 9 The Great Controlled-Drinking Controversy.- III. The Effects of Ethanol on Ion Channels.- 10 Calcium Channels: Interactions with Ethanol and Other Sedative-Hypnotic Drugs.- 11 Effects of Ethanol on the Functional Properties of Sodium Channels in Brain Synaptosomes.- 12 Involvement of Neuronal Chloride Channels in Ethanol Intoxication, Tolerance, and Dependence.- 13 The Effects of Ethanol on the Electrophysiology of Calcium Channels.- 14 The Electrophysiology of Potassium Channels.- IV. Hazardous and Early Problem Drinking.- 15 Studying Drinking Problems Rather than Alcoholism.- 16 Social Drinking as a Health and Psychosocial Risk Factor: Anstie's Limit Revisited.- 17 Methods of Intervention to Modify Drinking Patterns in Heavy Drinkers.- 18 Techniques to Modify Hazardous Drinking Patterns.- 19 Alcohol-Related Hazardous Behavior among College Students.