Psychological Neuroscience Lab, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Campus Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal.
Psychological Neuroscience Lab, CIPsi, School of Psychology, University of Minho, Campus Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal.
Addict Behav. 2019 Dec;99:106009. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2019.05.033. Epub 2019 Jun 3.
Binge Drinking (BD) is a pattern of excessive alcohol consumption highly prevalent among college students, and has been associated with structural and functional alterations of brain networks. Recent advances in the resting-state connectivity analysis have boosted the research of the network-level connectivity disturbances associated with many psychiatric and neurological disorders, including addiction. Accordingly, atypical functional connectivity patterns in resting-state networks such as the Executive Control Network (ECN) have been found in substance users and alcohol-dependent individuals. In this study, we assessed for the first time the ECN functional and structural connectivity in a group of 34 college students, 20 (10 women) binge drinkers (BDs) in comparison with a group of 14 (8 women) alcohol abstinent controls (AACs). Overall, our findings documented increased resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in the BDs left middle frontal cortex of the left ECN in comparison to the AACs, while no structural connectivity differences were observed between groups. Pearson correlations revealed a positive association between the left middle frontal gyrus rsFC and the frequency of BD episodes per month, in the BD group. These findings suggest that maintaining a pattern of acute and intermittent alcohol consumption during important stages of brain development, as the transition from adolescence to adulthood, is associated with impaired ECN rsFC despite no group differences being yet noticed in the ECN structural connectivity.
binge 饮酒(BD)是大学生中非常普遍的一种过度饮酒模式,并且与大脑网络的结构和功能改变有关。静息状态连接分析的最新进展推动了与许多精神和神经疾病相关的网络水平连接障碍的研究,包括成瘾。因此,在物质使用者和酒精依赖者中发现了静息状态网络中异常的功能连接模式,例如执行控制网络(ECN)。在这项研究中,我们首次评估了 34 名大学生中的 ECN 功能和结构连接,其中 20 名(10 名女性) binge 饮酒者(BDs)与 14 名(8 名女性)酒精禁欲对照组(AACs)进行了比较。总的来说,与 AACs 相比,BDs 的左侧 ECN 左侧额中回的静息状态功能连接(rsFC)增加,而两组之间没有观察到结构连接差异。Pearson 相关性分析显示,BD 组的左额中回 rsFC 与每月 BD 发作频率呈正相关。这些发现表明,在大脑发育的重要阶段(从青春期到成年期的过渡)期间保持急性和间歇性饮酒模式与 ECN rsFC 受损有关,尽管在 ECN 结构连接方面尚未发现组间差异。