Advances in alcoholism research in Germany.
This article presents the proceedings of a symposium at the 2004 International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism meeting in Heidelberg/Mannheim, Germany, put together by the German Society of Addiction Therapy and Research (DG-Sucht e.V.). The aim was to give an overview on recent findings from animal to human studies that were conducted by several research groups engaged in the alcoholism field in Germany for longer periods. Results of his animal studies were presented by J. Wolfgramm; G. Buchringer reported on epidemiologic and psychotherapeutic research advances on alcohol-related disorders in Germany. L. G. Schmidt summarized results of novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in alcohol dependence, and J. Boening focused on biopsychological personality traits as predictors for relapse in alcoholism. Data relating hyperhomocysteinemia and brain shrinkage in patients with alcoholism were presented by J. Kornhuber. Four addiction research networks federally funded represented their results in separate symposia and were therefore deliberately excluded from this symposium.