Long term alcohol use can be associated with several clinical presentations, like Wernicke encephalopathy, Korsakoff syndrome or alcohol related dementia. These clinical syndromes are caused by direct negative influence of alcohol and by several secondary factors related to alcohol addiction. Patients addicted to alcohol with severe cognitive dysfunctions and different types of brain impairment are common in clinical settings. In some patients a noticeable improvement of impairment occurs during the period of weeks to months. According to the data from studies on populations of addicted patients as well as the data from animal models, reparation processes in brain tissues are verified in early period of abstinence. These findings are important for next research and some of them could be applied in common clinical practice.

Key words: alcohol addiction – cognitive impairment – brain impairment – reversibility of impairment