Sariah Adellah, Pu Weidan, Xue Zhimin, Liu Zhening, Huang Xiaojun
National Clinical Research Centre for Mental Disorders, Institute of Mental Health and Department of Psychiatry, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
Department of Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing, Hubert Kairuki Memorial University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Front Psychiatry. 2020 Jul 10;11:654. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00654. eCollection 2020.
Findings from brain structural imaging studies on betel quid dependence have supported relations between betel quid chewing and alterations in gray matter volume and white matter integrity. However, the effect of betel quid chewing on cortical thickness and the link between cortical thickness and symptom severity remains unascertained.
In this observational study, we compared cortical thickness measures from 24 male betel quid-dependent chewers with 27 male healthy controls. Using FreeSufer, we obtained three-dimensional T1-weighted images that were used to compute the thickness of the cerebral cortex throughout the cortical layer.
Compared to healthy controls, betel quid dependent chewers displayed significant decreased cortical thickness in the precuneus, entorhinal, right paracentral, middle temporal, and caudal middle frontal gyri. Betel quid dependence scale scores negatively correlated (r = -0.604; = 0.002) with reduced cortical thickness in the right caudal middle frontal of betel quid-dependent chewers.
The findings provide evidence for cortical thickness abnormality in betel dependent chewers and further propose that the severity of betel quid symptoms may be a critical aspect associated with the cortical alterations. The observed alterations may serve as potential mechanisms to explain why BQ chewing behavior is persistent among individuals with betel quid dependence.
关于槟榔依赖的脑结构成像研究结果支持了嚼槟榔与灰质体积改变和白质完整性之间的关系。然而，嚼槟榔对皮质厚度的影响以及皮质厚度与症状严重程度之间的联系仍未确定。
在这项观察性研究中，我们比较了24名男性槟榔依赖咀嚼者和27名男性健康对照者的皮质厚度测量值。使用FreeSufer，我们获得了三维T1加权图像，用于计算整个皮质层的大脑皮质厚度。
与健康对照者相比，槟榔依赖咀嚼者在楔前叶、内嗅区、右侧中央旁小叶、颞中回和额中回中部显示出明显的皮质厚度降低。槟榔依赖量表得分与槟榔依赖咀嚼者右侧额中回中部皮质厚度降低呈负相关（r = -0.604；P = 0.002）。
这些发现为槟榔依赖咀嚼者的皮质厚度异常提供了证据，并进一步表明槟榔症状的严重程度可能是与皮质改变相关的一个关键方面。观察到的改变可能是解释为什么嚼槟榔行为在槟榔依赖个体中持续存在的潜在机制。
