ISAM-12th Annual Meeting - Bridging the Gap Between Science and Clinical Practice

The Internationa Society of Addiction Medicine Annual Conference in Milan, Italy at the University Bicocca is an exceptional events.  Full attendance from dozens of countries from around the world. I've so far spoken to Malaysians, Africans,  Norwegians, Germans, Australians, Canadians, Brits, French, Swiss, Americans and more.  Flags from everywhere are immediately noticeable recognising the countries of the attendees.
Oct. 5, 2010 the Plenary Sessions were at the cutting edge of the field addressing the controversies and informing of the latest break through research. 
Dr. Howard Moss, the Associated Clinical Research Head of the US NIAAA opened his seminal lecture by saying, "The question I am most asked, is "Does Underage Drinking Cause Brain Damage?"  In answer to this question he went on to show that the convergent evidence from Brain Imaging Evidence comparing heavy drinking adolescents to others strongly supported this hypothesis. This came from Morphometry stuidies showing heavy drinkers have smaller hippocampus, evidence of pre frontal cortex reduction and evidence of changes in the demyelination process. It wasn't known if this was permanent, predictive or just evidence of delayed maturation but it was certainly showed negative abnormalities.