Clinical NeuroImaging Research Core, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Brown-National Institutes of Health Graduate Partnership Program, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Addict Biol. 2017 Sep;22(5):1426-1437. doi: 10.1111/adb.12421. Epub 2016 Jun 23.
Chronic alcohol use has widespread effects on brain morphometry. Alcohol dependent individuals are often diagnosed with comorbid substance use disorders. Alterations in brain morphometry may be different in individuals that are dependent on alcohol alone and individuals dependent on alcohol and other substances. We examined subcortical brain volumes in 37 individuals with alcohol dependence only (ADO), 37 individuals with polysubstance use disorder (PS) and 37 healthy control participants (HC). Participants underwent a structural MR scan and a model-based segmentation tool was used to measure the volume of 14 subcortical regions (bilateral thalamus, caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, hippocampus, amygdala and nucleus accumbens). Compared to HC, ADO had smaller volume in the bilateral hippocampus, right nucleus accumbens and right thalamus. PS only had volume reductions in the bilateral thalamus compared to HC. PS had a larger right caudate compared to ADO. Subcortical volume was negatively associated with drinking measures only in the ADO group. This study confirms the association between alcohol dependence and reductions in subcortical brain volume. It also suggests that polysubstance use interacts with alcohol use to produce limited subcortical volume reduction and at least one region of subcortical volume increase. These findings indicate that additional substance use may mask damage through inflammation or may function in a protective manner, shielding subcortical regions from alcohol-induced damage.
慢性酒精使用对大脑形态计量学有广泛影响。酒精依赖者通常被诊断为共病物质使用障碍。仅依赖酒精和同时依赖酒精和其他物质的个体的大脑形态计量学改变可能不同。我们检查了 37 名仅酒精依赖（ADO）、37 名多物质使用障碍（PS）和 37 名健康对照参与者（HC）的皮质下脑容量。参与者接受了结构磁共振扫描，使用基于模型的分割工具测量了 14 个皮质下区域（双侧丘脑、尾状核、壳核、苍白球、海马体、杏仁核和伏隔核）的体积。与 HC 相比，ADO 双侧海马体、右侧伏隔核和右侧丘脑体积较小。PS 与 HC 相比，双侧丘脑体积减小。皮质下体积仅与 ADO 组的饮酒量呈负相关。这项研究证实了酒精依赖与皮质下脑容量减少之间的关联。它还表明，多物质使用与酒精使用相互作用，导致皮质下体积减少有限，至少一个皮质下体积增加区域。这些发现表明，额外的物质使用可能通过炎症掩盖损伤，或者可能以保护的方式发挥作用，使皮质下区域免受酒精引起的损伤。
