ABSTRACT
All European countries suffer from the sequelae of high alcohol consumption. Individual consumers are apt to different organ damage. The deleterious effects of alcohol on the brain have been known since the last century (Wernicke, 1881, Korsakoff, 1887). Today they can be recognized at the morphological, molecular, and neurochemical levels. Alcohol is rapidly incorporated into biological membranes with consequent changes in ion channel (Roach, 1979), receptor (Charness et al., 1983) and neurotransmitter (Littleton, 1978) functions. At present there is no clear understanding of the inter-relationships between identified morphological, molecular and neurochemical abnormalities and hence a clear understanding of the mechanisms of actions of alcohol on the central nervous system eludes us.
