Changes in functional connectivity of ventral anterior cingulate cortex in heroin abusers.
BACKGROUND
Previous studies with animal experiments, autopsy, structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and task-related functional MRI (fMRI) have confirmed that brain functional connectivity in addicts has become impaired. The goal of this study was to investigate the alteration of resting-state functional connectivity of the ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC) in the heroin abusers' brain.


METHODS
Fifteen heroin abusers and fifteen matched healthy volunteers were studied using vACC as the region-of interest (ROI) seed. A 3.0 T scanner with a standard head coil was the imagining apparatus. T2*-weighted gradient-echo planar imaging (GRE-EPI) was the scanning protocol. A ROI seed based correlation analysis used a SPM5 software package as the tool for all images processing.


RESULTS
This study showed a functional connection to the insula vACC in heroin abusers. Compared with controls, heroin users showed decreased functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and vACC, between the parahippocampala gyrus/amgdala (PHC/amygdala) and vACC, between the thalamus and vACC, and between the posterior cingulated cortex/precuneus (PCC/pC) and vACC.


CONCLUSIONS
The altered resting-state functional connectivity to the vACC suggests the neural circuitry on which the addictive drug has an affect and reflects the dysfunction of the addictive brain.
Wang
Wei
W
Molecular Imaging Center, First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shannxi 710061, China.
Wang
Ya-rong
YR
Qin
Wei
W
Yuan
Kai
K
Tian
Jie
J
Li
Qiang
Q
Yang
Lan-ying
LY
Lu
Lin
L
Guo
You-min
YM
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006556:Heroin Dependence / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged