Meda Shashwath A, Dager Alecia D, Hawkins Keith A, Tennen Howard, Raskin Sarah, Wood Rebecca M, Austad Carol S, Fallahi Carolyn R, Pearlson Godfrey D
Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, Hartford HealthCare Corporation, Hartford, CT, United States.
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2017 Sep 29;11:176. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00176. eCollection 2017.
Heavy and/or harmful alcohol use while in college is a perennial and significant public health issue. Despite the plethora of cross-sectional research suggesting deleterious effects of alcohol on the brain, there is a lack of literature investigating the longitudinal effects of alcohol consumption on the adolescent brain. We aim to probe the longitudinal effects of college drinking on gray matter change in students during this crucial neurodevelopmental period. Data were derived from the longitudinal Brain and Alcohol Research in College Students (BARCS) study of whom a subset underwent brain MRI scans at two time points 24 months apart. Students were young adults with a mean age at baseline of about 18.5 years. Based on drinking metrics assessed at both baseline and followup, subjects were classified as sustained abstainers/light drinkers ( = 45) or sustained heavy drinkers ( = 84) based on criteria established in prior literature. Gray matter volumetric change (GMV-c) maps were derived using the longitudinal DARTEL pipeline as implemented in SPM12. GMV-c maps were then subjected to a 1-sample and 2-sample -test in SPM12 to determine within- and between-group GMV-c differences in drinking groups. Supplementary between-group differences were also computed at baseline only. Within-group analysis revealed significant decline in GMV in both groups across the 2 year followup period. However, tissue loss in the sustained heavy drinking group was more significant, larger per region, and more widespread across regions compared to abstainers/light drinkers. Between-group analysis confirmed the above and showed a greater rate of GMV-c in the heavy drinking group in several brain regions encompassing inferior/medial frontal gyrus, parahippocampus, and anterior cingulate. Supplementary analyses suggest that some of the frontal differences existed at baseline and progressively worsened. Sustained heavy drinking while in college was associated with accelerated GMV decline in brain regions involved with executive functioning, emotional regulation, and memory, which are critical to everyday life functioning. Areas of significant GMV decreases also overlapped largely with brain reward and stress systems implicated in addictive behavior.
在大学期间大量饮酒和/或有害饮酒是一个长期存在的重大公共卫生问题。尽管大量横断面研究表明酒精对大脑有有害影响，但缺乏关于酒精消费对青少年大脑纵向影响的文献。我们旨在探究在这个关键的神经发育时期，大学饮酒对学生灰质变化的纵向影响。数据来自对大学生的纵向脑与酒精研究（BARCS），其中一部分人在相隔24个月的两个时间点接受了脑部MRI扫描。学生为年轻成年人，基线时平均年龄约18.5岁。根据基线和随访时评估的饮酒指标，按照先前文献确立的标准，将受试者分为持续戒酒者/轻度饮酒者（n = 45）或持续重度饮酒者（n = 84）。使用SPM12中实现的纵向DARTEL管道得出灰质体积变化（GMV-c）图。然后在SPM12中对GMV-c图进行单样本和两样本t检验，以确定饮酒组内和组间的GMV-c差异。仅在基线时也计算了补充组间差异。组内分析显示，在两年的随访期内，两组的GMV均显著下降。然而，与戒酒者/轻度饮酒者相比，持续重度饮酒组的组织损失更显著，每个区域更大，且在各区域更广泛。组间分析证实了上述情况，并显示在包括额下回/内侧额回、海马旁回和前扣带回在内的几个脑区，重度饮酒组的GMV-c下降率更高。补充分析表明，一些额叶差异在基线时就存在，并逐渐恶化。大学期间持续重度饮酒与涉及执行功能、情绪调节和记忆的脑区GMV加速下降有关，而这些功能对日常生活至关重要。GMV显著下降的区域也与涉及成瘾行为的脑奖赏和应激系统在很大程度上重叠。
