Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, United States.
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, United States.
Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging. 2021 Jan 30;307:111230. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2020.111230. Epub 2020 Nov 23.
Previous studies demonstrate profound sex-specific patterns of white matter microstructural neurodevelopment (i.e. fractional anisotropy; FA, and mean diffusivity; MD) during adolescence. While alcohol use has been associated with alterations in FA and MD, no studies have addressed the potential for sex-specific, alcohol-dose-dependent effects, during development. This prospective longitudinal study (2-4 visits, 310 total scans) used voxel-wise multilevel modeling, in 132 (68 female) adolescents (ages 12-21), to assess the sex-specific effects of lifetime alcohol use on FA and MD, during development. Follow-up analyses tested the role of sex hormones, testosterone and estradiol, in explaining the effects of alcohol use on FA and MD. In the splenium of the corpus callosum and posterior thalamic radiation, male adolescents demonstrated lower FA and greater MD as a function of more lifetime alcohol use, while female adolescents demonstrated the opposite. Further, significant associations between sex hormones and FA/MD partially explained the effect of alcohol use on FA and MD in male adolescents. These results provide evidence for sex-specific and dose-related effects of alcohol use on white matter microstructure, which are partially explained by sex hormones, and highlight the importance of studying sex and hormones when investigating the effects of alcohol use on the adolescent brain.
先前的研究表明,在青春期,白质微观结构神经发育(即各向异性分数;FA 和平均弥散度;MD)存在显著的性别特异性模式。虽然饮酒与 FA 和 MD 的改变有关,但尚无研究探讨在发育过程中,潜在的性别特异性、酒精剂量依赖性效应。这项前瞻性纵向研究(2-4 次访问,共 310 次扫描)使用体素水平多层次建模,对 132 名(68 名女性)青少年(年龄 12-21 岁)进行了评估,以研究终生饮酒对 FA 和 MD 的性别特异性影响。后续分析测试了性激素、睾酮和雌二醇在解释饮酒对 FA 和 MD 影响中的作用。在胼胝体压部和丘脑后辐射中,男性青少年表现出 FA 降低和 MD 增加,这与他们一生中饮酒量的增加有关,而女性青少年则表现出相反的结果。此外,性激素与 FA/MD 之间的显著关联部分解释了酒精使用对男性青少年 FA 和 MD 的影响。这些结果为酒精使用对白质微观结构的性别特异性和剂量相关效应提供了证据,这些效应部分由性激素解释,并强调了在研究酒精使用对青少年大脑的影响时,研究性别和激素的重要性。