Talk:Alcohol-related brain damage

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): JaminB, DrakeS, Emmett121.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Our goal of this edit was to develop the current Alcohol-related brain damage article and add well cited secondary sources to provide high quality material. We addressed prevalence and incidence, associated neurological deficits, and the related neuroimaging in hopes of adding great detail and breadth to this important and pressing topic. Emmett121 (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC) DrakeS (talk) 23:21, 9 April 2018 (UTC) JaminB (talk) 23:23, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

It is unclear from this article at what threshold of alcohol consumption each effect is observed. Balupton (talk) 10:58, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Secondary review

Hi! I thought your is very well written in all aspects!. Just a couple of grammar mistakes here and there but otherwise great job! Mira pasawala (talk) 02:53, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Mira! Can you please tell us what grammar mistakes you are referring to? Thank you. DrakeS (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Secondary Review II

Hey y'all! Strong work overall; I enjoyed perusing your article! My main suggestion for improvement involves proofing for repeated information. Especially in the "Clinical Applications" section, there seemed to be information that had already been discussed. Also, in the first sentence of your "Prevalence" section, I don't think that the quote is necessary. You could just say, "half of American alcoholics exhibit neuropsychological disabilities." In the fourth paragraph of your lead, there should be a comma after "unemployment." That's all I got. Let me know if you have questions regarding my comments.

Patrick V1 (talk) 21:59, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! As far as repeated information we condensed the article so information was only stated once. We rephrased the "half of American alcoholics exhibit.." part. In addtion the coma was added after "unemployment". Thanks again! Emmett121 (talk) 00:28, 25 April 2018

Secondary Review III

This article had a lot of information and was very detailed, which is perfect to put in your main space. Great job on the organization and the references look good as well. Just remember to fix grammatical errors underneath the “Pathophysiology” section where the sentence starts with “brain damage…”. The structure of the sentence needs work, but overall the article is great!AndreH29 (talk) 02:16, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the positive feedback on our organization and references! We have gone back to our "Pathophysiology" section and rephrased the sentence structure. Thanks for the tip! Emmett121 (talk) 00:32, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Secondary Review IV

Just as was said above, there were a few grammar errors here and there. Something else I saw was that you should've spelled out the number 2 in the Prevalence section. I think, if possible, you could use some more images (I'm totally aware that it can be hard to find images that correctly explain what you're trying to say). Overall, great work! AshleyPT (talk) 16:30, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Ashley! We have gone back and and made grammar changes throughout the article. Addionally "2" has been written out in the Prevalence section. We are also adding more images to break up the text. Thanks! Emmett121 (talk) 00:36, 25 April 2018

Primary Review

Well Written

• Article is very well written.
• "Thus the genetics of impulsivity overlaps with genetic risks for alcohol use disorder and possibly alcohol neurodegeneration".
• Few grammar errors.
• "Parental history of alcoholism and/or binge drinking and gender has an influence on susceptibility to alcohol dependence as higher levels are typically seen in males and in those with a family history" is slightly confusing. I'd do Parental history of alcoholism, binge drinking, and gender...

Verifiable With No Original Research

• Research looks well done and thorough.
• Agreeing with previous review I believe your 8th source is original research.

Broad in Coverage

• Very broad coverage. All questions were answered.
• Analysis is thorough and well presented.
• Seems as though all aspects of the topic are addressed and clarified.

Neutral

• Yes. All information seems impartial.

Illustrated

• Illustrations are descriptive and make sense.
• I feel more could have been added.

Final Thoughts

• Article could have been a little more cohesive. At times I can tell when the author changes. For the future when editing try to keep voices consistent.
• Though minimal I like the illustrations.
• Neuroimaging section is very well done.

Source

• Source 1
• This source appears to be a primary source. It contains graphs, figures, and procedures that are consistent with primary sources. I would not include this in your references.

George baldas (talk) 04:41, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello George! Thanks for your detailed feedback. As you suggested, we have changed the wording on the "Parental history of alcoholism..." section. We are adding additional illustrations to depict what we are discussing in our article. If you look at our Source 1 it is indeed a secondary source because all of their information is cited from other sources. Thank you for your comments! Emmett121 (talk) 00:53

Primary Review 2

Hello, the overall page was well-written and was easy to follow as well as understand. You did an exceptional job at explaining the specific factors that play a role in alcohol-related brain damage. This helps give a slight background into what you are talking about. I also think you did a fine job in writing the background and gave enough setup information. You provide many links to help define specific terms, but I think you could add a few more such as pathology, NMDA, GABAergic enhancement, or hyperexcitability. Also, “hyperexcitability” is spelled two different ways, one with a hyphen and one without (under Excitotoxicity and kindling). I am not at all aware of how easy or hard it is to find an alcohol-damaged brain image, but including an image that shows exactly what is damaged within a brain scan would be helpful. I picked source number 4 (2010 National and State Costs of Excessive Alcohol Consumption) and it seems to be used correctly when citing the statistics that you want. Using this type of source for the statistics are needed, as finding statistics that you used on secondary sources can be difficult to find. Overall, the page is well-written and filled with enough detail to get a good grasp of alcohol-related brain damage.

NickSchneider (talk) 04:53, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Nick! Thanks for your postitive feedback on our article. We have added a link to "NMDA" in case someone is unfamiliar with the term. Hyperexcitability is now spelled the correct way without out a hyphen throughout our article. I really like your suggestion of adding a picture of imaging that shows the anatomical location of alcohol-related brain damage, however, free images on Wikimedia Commons are limited in selection so this won't be possible. Again thanks for your comments! Emmett121 (talk) 01:07, 25 April 2018

Secondary Review V

Hello! Overall, your article was very well written and detailed. I would suggest adding more information to the impact subsection, it is rather short, but I think you might be able to add more information about complications with pregnant women, I know you present a "Adolescents and genetic factors" section"(the G and F should be capitalized in the title), but you could perhaps give a short intro in the impact section and then elaborate in the "Adolescents and genetic factors section", which you've already done. Does that make sense? Overall, nice article, very well written and easy to read, and well organized! Medford22 (talk) 16:31, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments! The Prevalence and Impact sections are short because they deal with alcoholism which leads to alcohol-related brain damage, but our article is not on alcoholism so we left these two sections brief on purpose. The title "Adolescents and genetic factors was changed to be this way because it is grammatically correct to have only the first word capitalized. Thanks again! Emmett121 (talk) 01:19, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Primary Review 3

Initial Thoughts

Article overall

“Prevalence,” “Impact,” and “Populations at risk” are oddly placed. The flow between sections is good, but maybe it would be better to put these sections at the end with “Treatments”. “Neurological deficits” and “Neuroimaging” make up the bulk fo the article, so placing these immediately after the lead might make things flow more naturally.

Lead

The introductory sentence is good. It’s concise and accurate. The links seem a bit random though (brain and alcohol).

Neurological Deficits

It was a bit difficult to follow along in this section. There were a lot of links which was good, but there was also a lot of scientific verbiage, which may make it difficult for the average reader to understand. I know that that may be a bit difficult to work around, but it might be something to consider.

Excitotoxicity and kindling

Everything in this section is really good. I would suggest changing the subheading to “Kindling and excitotoxicity” simply because that’s the order in which you address the topics, but otherwise, this section is really solid.

Neuroimaging

This is an informative introduction/summary to neuroimaging! Good job!

Hemo-dynamic methods

This section was really well written. The only thing I noticed was the lack of a citation after the last sentence of this section. Otherwise, everything else looks good!

Electromagnetic methods

There was one sentence at the end of the first paragraph in this section that had a misplaced word.

Article Assessment

Lead

The introductory sentence is concise, informative, and accurate.

The lead doesn’t summarize the article per se, but it does include really important background information. Some of these things are mentioned later on in the article, but some things (like neuroimaging) aren’t mentioned at all in the lead. There is a part in the lead where additional health problems are mentioned, but we don’t see anything on this in the rest of the article. The current lead section is good and informative, but maybe it’d be a good idea to separate some things out into a “Background” section, after the lead but before the rest of the article?

Article

Everything is organized clearly and transitions work well for the most part. As I said above however, Prevalence, Impact, and Populations at risk seem out of place to me. There really isn’t a good place to put these sections because they are somewhat standalone paragraphs that don’t transition well to other sections, but I don’t know. It’s just my personal opinion though, and it really isn’t even a big issue.

I really liked how the Neurological deficits and Neuroimaging sections were organized. Everything flowed nicely and parts of the Neuroimaging section referred back to the Neurological deficits section. The flow will help the reader gain a more comprehensive understanding of the subject, so good job on that!

The coverage was as neutral as could be. You guys described the results and explained the other side as well.

The tone was somewhat neutral, but the article was a bit wordy at times. It was easy to follow along at some parts, but it was too scientific at other places in the article (see Initial Thoughts above).

References

The sections didn’t always include a supporting reference at the end. However, there were adequate citations found throughout the article.

The references are coming from appropriate sources for the topic.

References 2 and 11 are missing authors, but everything else looks okay.

Existing article

I like how you guys organized things. There were some things that didn’t belong in the lead (like prevalence), so you guys did a good job placing this information in its own section. The wording wasn’t exactly unbiased either, but you guys did a good job staying neutral.

I mentioned above that the impairments listed in the lead weren’t mentioned again in the article, but I see now that this was part of the original article.

You guys did a good job adding the Neurological deficits and Neuroimaging sections. It helps the reader gain a more comprehensive understanding of the subject.

New article

The article looks pretty good in all honesty. I had a difficult time finding things wrong with the article without being extremely nitpicky. Good job guys.

Reference Assessment

I was skeptical of your fourth source at first, “2010 National and State Costs of Excessive Alcohol Consumption.” After checking it out, it looks like a secondary source with appropriate sources itself. I would suggest clarifying that the $250 billion in 2010 was an estimate however (at least, this is what I understood it as).

I took a look at another of your references, source number seven titled, “The Neuropathology of Alcohol-Related Brain Damage.” It is a review article, so it is clearly a secondary source. I briefly skimmed through the article, and everything I read was consistent with what I had already read in your Wikipedia article. This was also your second most cited reference, so that was another good sign.

Final Thoughts

Good job guys. There are a few, minor kinks here and there, but it’s a really solid article. Good luck editing! Chadchang2 (talk) 04:46, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Author Comments

Thanks for the through review. I'll start with the idea to move the prevalence, impact, and populations at risk. We had originally put it need the beginning because we believe that these facts are what make our topic such an important thing, and after viewing a few other articles that also had these subheads near the top, we decided to keep it there. On your suggestion we changed the one of our titles from "Excitotoxicity and kindling" to "Kindling and Excitotoxicity". We also added a sentence in the lead that speaks on the Neuroimaging section. We fixed the issue with source 2 and 11 regarding the missing authors. Thank you again for the very in depth review it is much appreciated and greatly helped. JaminB (talk) 01:14, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Secondary Review 6

The article was extremely well written!
What I really liked was how it was pretty easy to follow! I truly understood everything that was being said so I am pretty sure anyone with prior knowledge of this topic should have no problem. There were a few run on sentences including the first one stated. But those are personal points that others may not see as bad. Other than those small changes, the article looks fantastic! Let me know if you have any questions or need any help! KashTalwar415 (talk) 11:59, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Author Comments

Thank you for your review and comments. We fixed some grammatical errors in the lead which might have been the "run on sentences" that you were referring to. Thanks again. JaminB (talk) 01:18, 25 April 2018 (UTC)