Wen Zhi, Han Xu, Wang Yao, Ding Weina, Sun Yawen, Kang Yan, Zhou Yan, Lei Hao, Lin Fuchun
Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
Department of Radiology, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2022 Apr 25;13:874893. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.874893. eCollection 2022.
Biological sex may play a large role in cigarette use and cessation outcomes and neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that cigarette smoking is associated with sex-related differences in brain structure and function. However, less is known about sex-specific alterations in spontaneous brain activity in cigarette smokers. In this study, we investigated the sex-related effects of cigarette smoking on local spontaneous brain activity using regional homogeneity (ReHo) based on resting-state fMRI. Fifty-six smokers (24 females) and sixty-three (25 females) healthy non-smoking controls were recruited. Whole-brain voxelwise 2-way analysis of covariance of ReHo was performed to detect brain regions with sex-dependent alterations on the spontaneous brain activity. Compared to non-smokers, smokers exhibited significant ReHo differences in several brain regions, including the right medial orbitofrontal cortex extended to the ventral striatum/amygdala/parahippocampus, left precuneus, and bilateral cerebellum crus. Smoking and sex interaction analysis revealed that male smokers showed significantly lower ReHo in the right ventral striatum, left cerebellum crus1, and left fusiform gyrus compared to male non-smokers, whereas there are no significant differences between female smokers and non-smokers. Furthermore, the ReHo within the left cerebellum crus1 was negatively correlated with craving scores in male smokers but not in female smokers. Such sex-dependent differences in spontaneous brain activity lays a foundation for further understanding the neural pathophysiology of sex-specific effects of nicotine addiction and promoting more effective health management of quitting smoking.
生物性别可能在吸烟行为及戒烟结果中发挥重要作用，神经影像学研究表明，吸烟与大脑结构和功能的性别差异有关。然而，对于吸烟者自发脑活动中的性别特异性改变，我们了解得还较少。在本研究中，我们基于静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI），采用局部一致性（ReHo）方法，研究了吸烟对局部自发脑活动的性别相关影响。招募了56名吸烟者（24名女性）和63名（25名女性）健康非吸烟对照者。进行全脑体素水平的ReHo双向协方差分析，以检测自发脑活动中存在性别依赖性改变的脑区。与非吸烟者相比，吸烟者在几个脑区表现出显著的ReHo差异，包括延伸至腹侧纹状体/杏仁核/海马旁回的右侧内侧眶额皮质、左侧楔前叶以及双侧小脑脚。吸烟与性别的交互分析显示，与男性非吸烟者相比，男性吸烟者在右侧腹侧纹状体、左侧小脑脚1和左侧梭状回的ReHo显著降低，而女性吸烟者与非吸烟者之间无显著差异。此外，左侧小脑脚1内的ReHo与男性吸烟者的渴望得分呈负相关，而与女性吸烟者无关。这种自发脑活动中的性别依赖性差异为进一步理解尼古丁成瘾性别特异性效应的神经病理生理学以及促进更有效的戒烟健康管理奠定了基础。
