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Editorial
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On this occasion, our ‘Happy New Year’ greeting carries a health warning, but one that brings some encouragement for those who decided to moderate their New Year's Eve celebrations. On page 36, Andreas Bartsch and colleagues from Würzberg and Aschersleben (Germany), Oxford (UK), Siena (Italy) and Basel (Switzerland) show that 7 weeks sobriety in detoxified alcoholics allows recovery from baseline of reduced brain volume, abnormal metabolism detected by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (cerebellar choline and frontomesial N-acetylaspartate), and impaired cognitive function. In his commentary on this paper, Graeme Mason commends the convergence of several previously disparate lines of investigation on alcohol and the brain, and highlights the motivation that these results provide for helping alcohol-dependent individuals to stay sober (page 8). Clearly, sales of Franconian wines, Gewürtztraminer and Chianti (Oxford has more modest claims to viniculture) are set to fall amongst those who previously considered themselves to ‘have a head
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