Abstract
Objective: To identify the underlying intrinsic functional connectome changes in patients with alcohol dependence.Methods: A functional connectivity density (FCD) analysis was used to report on the functional connectivity changes in 24 male patients with alcohol dependence (age, 47.83 ± 6.93 years) and 24 healthy male subjects (age, 47.67 ± 6.99 years). We defined the voxels with a correlated threshold of r > 0.25 inside their neighborhood (radius sphere ≤ 6 mm) as shortFCD, and radius sphere > 6 mm as longFCD. We repeated the network analysis using a range of correlation r thresholds (r = 0.30, 0.35, 0.40, 0.45, 0.50, 0.6, and 0.75) to determine whether between-group differences were substantially affected by the selection of the different R-value thresholds used. A ROC curve was used to test the ability of the FCD in discriminating between the two groups. Pearson's correlation was used to evaluate the relationships between the FCD differences in brain areas and demographic characteristics.Results: The covered differences in brain areas in binarized shortFCD were larger than binarized longFCD in both groups. The intra-group FCD differences did not depend on the selection of different thresholds used. Patients with alcohol dependence were associated with the longFCD deficit in the cerebellum posterior lobe, and shortFCD deficit in the ventral system of the visual pathway and increased shortFCD in the left precentral gyrus, right salience network and right cingulate gyrus. A ROC curve demonstrated that these specific brain areas alone discriminated between the two groups with a high degree of sensitivity and specificity. In the alcohol dependence group, the cerebellum posterior lobe, visual association cortex and the salience network displayed significant correlations with demographic characteristics.Conclusions: The shortFCD analysis was more sensitive than the longFCD analysis in finding differences in the brain areas. The ventral visual pathway-cerebellar circuit deficit appeared to be altered in patients with alcohol dependence.
Highlights
Alcohol dependence is the widest substance addiction worldwide, with high morbidity or mortality
We found that the two groups exhibited significantly similar differences in brain areas both in binarized long-range FCD (longFCD) and shortFCD maps
Alcohol dependence in patients was associated with the right cerebellum posterior lobe with significant decreased binarized longFCD, as well as the left precentral gyrus, right salience network and right cingulate gyrus with increased binarized shortFCD, and the left temporal pole, right inferior temporal lobe (BA 20, 37), bilateral visual association cortex and left striatum cortex with decreased binarized shortFCD. [3] Recently, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was widely applied in the exploration of the reliability of one neuroimaging approach, as a potential indicator in distinguishing one group from the other group [4, 19, 20]
Summary
Alcohol dependence is the widest substance addiction worldwide, with high morbidity or mortality. Alcohol consumption creates a perception of relief from the negative emotions, but extravagant alcohol consumption may bring numerous adverse health consequences, such as cancer, liver cirrhosis and vehicle accidents [1]. It may thereby increase and/or reinforce the likelihood of future drinking behavior [2]. Neuroimaging studies have described diverse pernicious effects from alcohol dependence, including the neurochemical changes and regional functional activity in the brain [3]. The advances of rfMRI may help us to non-invasively explore the functional organization in the human brain, better characterizing the changes of regional neuronal spontaneous brain activity and intrinsic connectivity patterns, to better understand the underlying neural basis of neuropsychiatric disorders
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