Abstract
BackgroundAlcohol dependence is a mental disorder with a high relapse rate. However, specific neuroimaging biomarkers have not been determined for alcohol dependence and its relapse. We conducted data-driven research to investigate resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) during early abstinence from alcohol dependence and its potential ability to predict relapse.MethodsParticipants included 68 alcohol-dependent patients and 68 healthy controls (HCs). The regional homogeneity (ReHo) and fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) were compared between the alcohol dependence group and the HCs and between the relapse group and the nonrelapse group. The brain regions that presented significantly different ReHo and/or fALFF between the alcohol-dependent patients and HCs and/or between the relapsed and nonrelapsed patients were selected as the seeds to calculate the functional connectivities (FCs).ResultsDuring a 6-month follow-up period, 52.24% of alcohol-dependent patients relapsed. A regression model for differentiating alcohol-dependent patients and HCs showed that reductions in ReHo in the left postcentral region, fALFF in the right fusiform region, and FC in the right fusiform region to the right middle cingulum were independently associated with alcohol dependence, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.841. The baseline FC of the left precentral to the left cerebellum of the relapse group was significantly lower than that of the nonrelapse group. The AUC of this FC to predict relapse was 0.774.ConclusionsOur findings contribute to advancing research on the neurobiological etiology and predictive biomarkers for relapse associated with alcohol dependence.
Highlights
According to the global status report from the World Health Organization (WHO), alcohol consumption is the seventh risk factor for death and causes a 5.1% loss of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) [1]
The results showed that the functional connectivities (FCs), regional homo‐ geneity (ReHo) and fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) values were significantly different between the alcohol dependence group and healthy controls (HCs) in the aforementioned two-sample t-test analyses, where age, education years and smoking status were treated as independent variables
We carried out data-driven research that utilized fALFF and ReHo analyses to identify the seeds of FC analyses in a study on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-functional MRI (fMRI)) marks in early alcohol abstinence in alcohol dependence and relapse
Summary
According to the global status report from the World Health Organization (WHO), alcohol consumption is the seventh risk factor for death and causes a 5.1% loss of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) [1]. Alcohol dependence is a mental disorder and contributes to physical diseases. With a high relapse rate, alcohol dependence has become a main reason for the large disease burden worldwide caused by alcohol use [3]. Most studies that have investigated the diagnosis and prognostic prediction of alcohol dependence have focused on mainly clinical features, such as clinical symptoms, drinking history and treatment compliance [7,8,9]. These studies have limited usefulness for elucidating the neurobiological mechanism of alcohol dependence. We conducted data-driven research to investigate resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) during early abstinence from alcohol dependence and its potential ability to predict relapse
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