  Chronic alcoholism is known to alter morphology of hippocampal, an important
region of cognitive function in the brain. We performed quantification of
nanoscale structural alterations in nuclei of hippocampal neuron cells due to
chronic alcoholism, in mice model. Transmission electron microscopy images of
the neuron cells were obtained and the degrees of structural alteration, in
terms of mass density fluctuations, were determined using the recently
developed light localization analysis technique. The results, obtained at the
length scales ranging from 33 to 195 nm, show that the 4-week alcohol fed mice
have higher degree of structural alteration in comparison to the control mice.
The degree of structural alterations starts becoming significantly
distinguishable around 100 nm sample length, which is the typical length scale
of the building blocks of cells, such as DNA, RNA, etc. Different degrees of
structural alterations at such length scales suggest possible structural
rearrangement of chromatin inside the nuclei.
