Abstract
Abnormal amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation has been implicated in heroin addiction. However, previous studies lacked consistency and didn’t consider the impact of confounding factors such as methadone and alcohol. Fifty-one heroin-dependent (HD) individuals and 40 healthy controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The ‘amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation’ (ALFF) value was calculated and support vector machine (SVM) classification analysis was applied to analyze the data. Compared with healthy controls, heroin addicts exhibited increased ALFF in the right angular gyrus (AG) and left superior occipital gyrus (SOG). A negative correlation was observed between increased ALFF in the right angular gyrus and left superior occipital gyrus and the duration of heroin use (p 1=0.004, r 1=-0.426; p 2=0.009, r 2=-0.361). Moreover, the ALFF in the right AG and left SOG could discriminate the HD subjects from the controls with acceptable accuracy (Acc1=64.85%, p 1=0.004; Acc2=63.80%, p 2=0.005). HD patients showed abnormal ALFF in the brain areas involved in semantic memory and visual networks. The longer HD individuals abused heroin, the less the ALFF of associated brain regions increased. These observed patterns suggested that the accumulative effect of heroin’s neurotoxicity overpowered self-recovery of the brain and may be applied as a potential biomarker to identify HD individuals from the controls.
Highlights
Heroin addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease characterized by addicts’ compulsive heroin seeking and consuming in spite of serious negative consequences [1]
In the HD group, the length of duration of heroin use was significantly negatively correlated with the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation’ (ALFF) values of right angular gyrus (AG) and left superior occipital gyrus (SOG)
Increased ALFF in the right AG and left SOG allowed for correct identification of the HD individuals from the controls with relatively high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy
Summary
Heroin addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease characterized by addicts’ compulsive heroin seeking and consuming in spite of serious negative consequences [1]. Abnormal ALFF in Heroin Addicts within the right frontal sub-gyral, corpus callosum, thalamic radiation, and inferior longitudinal fasciculus [2, 3], diminished regional homogeneity within the bilateral medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and bilateral cuneus [4], and the reduced gray matter volume within the precuneus, cuneus, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) [5, 6]. Functional MRIs (fMRI), a classic method for assessing hemodynamic changes after increased neural activity, have been widely applied in neuroimaging with its merits of ever-increasing availability, its noninvasive nature, and its relatively high spatiotemporal resolution [7]. Resting-state fMRI could explore the correlation of spontaneous neural excitation activity between different brain regions under rest (subjects didn’t undertake any language, cognitive, or motor tasks) [8]. Resting-state fMRI disclosed increased functional connectivity (FC) between the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and nucleus accumbens and between the OFC and amygdala, and reduced FC between the ACC and prefrontal cortex (PFC) and between the OFC and PFC [9]
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