Center for Studies of Addiction, Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market St Ste 500, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Department of Radiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, 525 E 68th St, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Feb 24;24(5):4461. doi: 10.3390/ijms24054461.
Chronic excessive alcohol use has neurotoxic effects, which may contribute to cognitive decline and the risk of early-onset dementia. Elevated peripheral iron levels have been reported in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD), but its association with brain iron loading has not been explored. We evaluated whether (1) serum and brain iron loading are higher in individuals with AUD than non-dependent healthy controls and (2) serum and brain iron loading increase with age. A fasting serum iron panel was obtained and a magnetic resonance imaging scan with quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) was used to quantify brain iron concentrations. Although serum ferritin levels were higher in the AUD group than in controls, whole-brain iron susceptibility did not differ between groups. Voxel-wise QSM analyses revealed higher susceptibility in a cluster in the left globus pallidus in individuals with AUD than controls. Whole-brain iron increased with age and voxel-wise QSM indicated higher susceptibility with age in various brain areas including the basal ganglia. This is the first study to analyze both serum and brain iron loading in individuals with AUD. Larger studies are needed to examine the effects of alcohol use on iron loading and its associations with alcohol use severity, structural and functional brain changes, and alcohol-induced cognitive impairments.
慢性过量饮酒具有神经毒性作用，可能导致认知能力下降和早发性痴呆的风险增加。据报道，酒精使用障碍（AUD）患者外周铁水平升高，但尚未探讨其与脑铁负荷的关系。我们评估了（1）AUD 患者的血清和脑铁负荷是否高于非依赖健康对照者，以及（2）血清和脑铁负荷是否随年龄增长而增加。我们获得了空腹血清铁谱，并使用磁共振成像扫描和定量磁化率映射（QSM）来定量脑铁浓度。尽管 AUD 组的血清铁蛋白水平高于对照组，但两组之间的全脑铁磁化率没有差异。体素-wise QSM 分析显示，AUD 患者左苍白球中的一个簇的磁化率较高。全脑铁随年龄增长而增加，体素-wise QSM 表明，包括基底节在内的各种脑区的铁磁化率随年龄增长而增加。这是第一项分析 AUD 患者血清和脑铁负荷的研究。需要更大的研究来检查酒精使用对铁负荷的影响及其与酒精使用严重程度、结构和功能脑变化以及酒精引起的认知障碍的关系。
