Does alcohol-induced blood cell agglutination cause brain damage?
After 3 weeks of alcohol intoxication, the brains of rats were searched with light- and electron microscopy for degenerating nervous tissue and agglutination of erythrocytes in the blood vessels. There was no sign of degeneration of nerve cells or synapses in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, cerebellum, midbrain or hindbrain. No histological sections showed blood vessels with erythrocytes inside them. It is concluded that the agglutination of red blood cells seen in the conjunctivae of intoxicated human alcoholics is not necessarily an indication that vascular congestion is also occurring in the brain of such patients, nor that this is the primary mechanism of alcohol-related brain damage.
