Charité University Medicine, St Hedwig Krankenhaus, Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Berlin, Germany.
Brain Struct Funct. 2012 Apr;217(2):517-22. doi: 10.1007/s00429-011-0346-5. Epub 2011 Sep 10.
Structural cerebral deficiencies in smokers have been well characterized by morphometric investigations focussing on cortical and subcortical structures. Although the role of the cerebellum is increasingly noted in mental and addiction disorders, no reports exist regarding cerebellar alterations in smokers employing a methodology specifically designed to assess the cerebellar morphology. We acquired high-resolution MRI scans from 33 heavy smokers and 22 never-smokers and used a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) approach utilizing the Spatially Unbiased Infratentorial (SUIT) toolbox (Diedrichsen 2006) to provide an optimized and fine-grained exploration of cerebellar structural alterations associated with smoking. Relative to never-smokers, smokers showed significant reductions of grey matter volume in the right cerebellum Crus I. The grey matter volume in Crus I correlated negatively with the amount of nicotine dependence as assessed by means of the Fagerström scale. Since Crus I has been identified as the cognitive division of the cerebellum, the structural deficit may in part mediate cognitive deficits previously reported in smokers. Of note, the dependence-related magnitude of the volume deficit may support the notion that the cerebellum is substantially involved in core mechanisms of drug dependence.
形态计量学研究集中于皮质和皮质下结构，充分描述了吸烟者的结构性脑缺陷。尽管小脑在精神和成瘾障碍中的作用越来越受到关注，但在采用专门设计的方法评估小脑形态的吸烟者中，尚无关于小脑改变的报告。我们从 33 名重度吸烟者和 22 名从不吸烟者中获取了高分辨率 MRI 扫描，并使用基于体素的形态学（VBM）方法利用空间无偏下脑（SUIT）工具箱（Diedrichsen 2006），对与吸烟相关的小脑结构改变进行了优化和精细的探索。与从不吸烟者相比，吸烟者的右侧小脑 Crus I 灰质体积明显减少。Crus I 的灰质体积与通过 Fagerström 量表评估的尼古丁依赖量呈负相关。由于 Crus I 已被确定为小脑的认知分部，因此结构性缺陷可能部分介导了先前报道的吸烟者的认知缺陷。值得注意的是，与依赖相关的体积缺陷的幅度可能支持小脑在药物依赖的核心机制中起重要作用的观点。
