Yuan Fulai, Zhu Xueling, Kong Lingyu, Shen Huaizhen, Liao Weihua, Jiang Canhua
Health Management Center, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2017 Oct 12;8:201. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00201. eCollection 2017.
Betel quid (BQ) is a commonly consumed psychoactive substance, which has been regarded as a human carcinogen. Long-term BQ chewing may cause Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV dependence symptoms, which can lead to decreased cognitive functions, such as attention and inhibition control. Although betel quid dependence (BQD) individuals have been reported with altered brain structure and function, there is little evidence showing white matter microstructure alternation in BQD individuals. The present study aimed to investigate altered white matter microstructure in BQD individuals using diffusion tensor imaging. Tract-based spatial statistics was used to analyze the data. Compared with healthy controls, BQD individuals exhibited higher mean diffusivity (MD) in anterior thalamic radiation (ATR). Further analysis revealed that the ATR in BQD individuals showed less fractional anisotropy (FA) than that in healthy controls. Correlation analysis showed that both the increase of MD and reduction of FA in BQD individuals were associated with severity of BQ dependence. These results suggested that BQD would disrupt the balance between prefrontal cortex and subcortical areas, causing declined inhibition control.
槟榔是一种常见的精神活性物质，已被视为人类致癌物。长期咀嚼槟榔可能会导致《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》第四版所定义的依赖症状，进而导致认知功能下降，如注意力和抑制控制能力降低。尽管已有报道称槟榔依赖个体的大脑结构和功能发生了改变，但几乎没有证据表明槟榔依赖个体存在白质微观结构改变。本研究旨在使用扩散张量成像技术研究槟榔依赖个体白质微观结构的改变。采用基于体素的空间统计学方法分析数据。与健康对照组相比，槟榔依赖个体丘脑前辐射（ATR）的平均扩散率（MD）更高。进一步分析发现，槟榔依赖个体的ATR的各向异性分数（FA）低于健康对照组。相关性分析表明，槟榔依赖个体MD的增加和FA的降低均与槟榔依赖的严重程度相关。这些结果表明，槟榔依赖会破坏前额叶皮质与皮质下区域之间的平衡，导致抑制控制能力下降。
