Ethanol

Ethanol is widely consumed worldwide. Excessive acute exposure can cause significant adverse central nervous system (CNS) effects, most notably CNS depression. Chronic high level ethanol consumption may cause alcoholism, with physical and psychical dependence. Neurological manifestations of alcoholism include peripheral neuropathy, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, and cerebellar degeneration, which may be due to direct effects of ethanol and/or its metabolite acetaldehyde, or to nutritional deficiencies, particularly of thiamine. Hepatic encephalopathy and alcoholic dementia are the result of direct toxic effects of ethanol in the liver and brain. In utero exposure to ethanol can lead to offspring affected by fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, the most severe of which is the fetal alcohol syndrome; its major features are growth retardation, facial dysmorphisms, microencephaly, and mental retardation.