Broad disruption of brain white matter microstructure and relationship with neuropsychological performance in male patients with severe alcohol dependence.
OBJECTIVE
In the last years, refined magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) methods have become available to study microstructural alterations in the human brain. We investigated to what extent white matter tissue abnormalities are present in male patients after chronic, excessive alcohol consumption and if these alterations are correlated with measures of alcohol consumption and neuropsychological performance.


METHODS
Twenty-four detoxified adult male patients with severe alcohol dependence and 23 healthy male control subjects were included in the study. Neuropsychological tests were assessed for executive function, attention, memory and visuospatial function. DTI was acquired and preprocessing of the data was performed using tract-based spatial statistics. Group differences of fractional anisotropy (FA) as well as correlation analyses with neuropsychological measures and drinking history were calculated.


RESULTS
Performance in alcoholic patients was significantly poorer in tests of non-verbal reasoning and attention. In detoxified alcoholic patients, lower FA was primarily found in the body of the corpus callosum, but these findings did not correlate directly with behavioral measures. However, executive and psychomotor performance (Trail-Making Test) correlated significantly with FA in right anterior cingulate and left motor areas.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings provide further evidence for reduced integrity of interhemispheric connections in male patients with severe alcohol dependence, and neurocognitive performance was in part correlated with FA.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Untere Zahlbacher Strasse 8, 55131 Mainz, Germany. andreas_konrad@gmx.de
Andreas
A
Konrad
Goran
G
Vucurevic
Markus
M
Lorscheider
Nina
N
Bernow
Milena
M
Thümmel
Cindy
C
Chai
Philippe
P
Pfeifer
Peter
P
Stoeter
Armin
A
Scheurich
Christoph
C
Fehr
D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D016880:Anisotropy; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology*; D056344:Executive Function; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D036421:Nerve Fibers, Unmyelinated / Q000473:pathology*; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000473:pathology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011597:Psychomotor Performance