Pfefferbaum A, Sullivan E V, Hedehus M, Adalsteinsson E, Lim K O, Moseley M
Neuropsychiatry Program, SRI International, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2000 Aug;24(8):1214-21.
Postmortem studies report degradation of brain white matter microstructure in chronic alcoholism, but until recently, in vivo neuroimaging could provide measurement only at a macrostructural level. The development of magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) for clinical use offers a method for depicting and quantifying the diffusion properties of white matter expressed as intravoxel and intervoxel coherence of tracts and fibers.
This study used DTI to examine the intravoxel coherence measured as fractional anisotropy (FA) and intervoxel coherence (C) of white matter tracts of the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum and of the centrum semiovale in 15 detoxified alcoholic men and 31 nonalcoholic control subjects. Exploratory correlational analyses examined the relationships between regional DTI measures and tests of attention and working memory in the alcoholic patients.
The alcoholic group had lower regional FA than the control group. C was lower in the alcoholics than controls in the splenium only. Working memory correlated positively with splenium FA, whereas attention correlated positively with genu C.
These results provide in vivo evidence for disruption of white matter microstructure in alcoholism and suggest that interruption of white matter fiber coherence contributes to disturbance in attention and working memory in chronic alcoholism.
尸检研究报告称，慢性酒精中毒患者脑白质微观结构会退化，但直到最近，活体神经成像仅能在宏观结构层面进行测量。用于临床的磁共振扩散张量成像（DTI）的发展提供了一种方法，可描绘和量化白质的扩散特性，该特性表现为体素内和体素间束与纤维的相干性。
本研究使用DTI检查了15名戒酒男性和31名非酒精对照受试者胼胝体膝部和压部以及半卵圆中心白质束的体素内相干性（以分数各向异性（FA）衡量）和体素间相干性（C）。探索性相关分析研究了酒精中毒患者区域DTI测量值与注意力和工作记忆测试之间的关系。
酒精中毒组的区域FA低于对照组。仅在压部，酒精中毒患者的C低于对照组。工作记忆与压部FA呈正相关，而注意力与膝部C呈正相关。
这些结果为酒精中毒患者白质微观结构破坏提供了活体证据，并表明白质纤维相干性中断导致慢性酒精中毒患者的注意力和工作记忆障碍。
