Alcohol and Alcoholism Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 628, 2000
© 2000 Medical Council on Alcoholism
Book Reviews
Alcohol and Alcoholism. Effects on Brain and Development.
Edited by J. H. Hannigan, L. P. Spear, N. E. Spear, C. R. Goodlett. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahway, NJ. 1999. ISBN: 0805826866.
This book is said to exemplify the interaction between basic and clinical research — how the two complement, inform, and facilitate each other. The topics covered include brain development and early learning, fetal alcohol effects, the acquisition of responses to alcohol, and alcoholism treatment. Animal and human research is reviewed. All the authors are based in the USA, except for three from Argentina.
Strangely positioned in what is otherwise a collection of reviews of animal and human studies on the effects of alcohol on the developing brain, is a chapter describing three alcohol treatment programmes using motivational enhancement therapy, the community reinforcement approach, and community reinforcement and family training (an intervention which works through a concerned family member when a drinker refuses treatment).
This book will be of value to those engaged in animal or human research on the effects of alcohol on the developing brain. It has a wealth of information for those interested in the fetal alcohol syndrome and less severe effects of alcohol on the fetus. Perhaps the subtitle of the book should have been ‘Effects on Brain Development’, as it does not cover alcohol effects on the developed brain. So those looking, for instance, for information on Korsakoff's psychosis or alcoholic dementia will not find it. The one chapter on treatment is of limited scope and sits awkwardly among the other chapters. The book will be of little interest to the majority of clinicians, i.e. those involved in assessing and treating problem drinkers.
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