De Santis S, et al. - Researchers examined whether commonly observed white matter defects in alcohol use disorder can be correlated to alcohol employing a translational diffusion tensor imaging approach. In addition, they investigated its utility in monitoring the progression of defects into early abstinence. In this prospective observational study, they included 91 men with alcohol use disorder, 36 healthy male controls, and 27 rats with a high preference for alcohol and 9 control rats. Findings revealed highly similar white matter alterations between species. During early abstinence (2-6 weeks), patients and rats exhibited a similar pattern of progression in diffusion tensor imaging alterations. Association with alcohol was thus supported by the reproducible patterns of alterations in humans and rats. The progression of diffusion tensor imaging alterations into early abstinence implies the evolution of an underlying process soon after cessation of alcohol use.