Alcoholism can disrupt memory functioning well before incurring the profound amnesia of Korsakoff's syndrome. For example, associative memory - used in remembering face-name associations - can be impaired in alcoholics. A study of the cognitive and brain mechanisms underlying this deficit, through testing of associative memory performance and processing in study participants during structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning, have found that impaired learning abilities are predominantly associated with cerebellar brain volumes...

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