Study of Exploratory Plasmatic Markers of Alcohol Withdrawal

This research focuses on alcohol withdrawal in hospitals and its potential neurological consequences. Alcohol withdrawal is an event that induces physical symptoms, such as tremors, sweating, anxiety and requires medical support. Sometimes alcohol withdrawal results in neurological complications, such as epileptic seizures, delirium tremens, Wernicke Encephalopathy, memory and cognitive disorders. Chronic alcohol consumption and lack of vitamin B1 also cause neurological damage. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain can be used to assess severe forms, but gives little information about possible recovery and mild or transient forms. Currently, there is no scientifically validated blood measurement to assess the intensity of these neurological complications, to predict their occurrence and recovery, or to distinguish between the consequences of chronic alcohol consumption, complications of alcohol withdrawal and vitamin B1 deficiency. This is non-experimental, non-controlled observational research. Four plasma biomarkers were selected to be evaluated in the field of alcoholology. t is the dosage of light neurofilaments (NFL), the Tau protein, the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and the ubiquitin carboxyl terminal hydrolase L1 (UCHL-1). These biomarkers are studied, in particular in cerebrospinal fluid, in neurodegenerative diseases and in patients having experienced a cranial trauma. They were described in the literature as markers of cerebral suffering. NF-L would reflect the axon injury, Tau and UCHL-1 protein the neurons injury and GFAP the astrocytes injury. The Quanterix\* assay technique (SIMOA technology) allows simultaneous assay of these 4 biomarkers, with a detection threshold 100 times lower than that of the ELISA technique. This allows plasma assays to be performed and is therefore more accessible and less risky for the patient than assays in cerebrospinal fluid. The objective was to study the kinetics of these four biomarkers (NFL, Tau, GFAP