title: Altered fronto-striatal and fronto-cerebellar circuits in heroin-dependent individuals: a resting-state FMRI study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The formation of compulsive pattern of drug use is related to abnormal regional neural activity and functional reorganization in the heroin addicts' brain, but the relationship between heroin-use-induced disrupted local neural activity and its functional organization pattern in resting-state is unknown.
  
  
  RESULTS
  With fMRI data acquired during resting state from 17 male heroin dependent individuals (HD) and 15 matched normal controls (NC), we analyzed the changes of amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF) in brain areas, and its relationship with history of heroin use. Then we investigated the addiction related alteration in functional connectivity of the brain regions with changed ALFF using seed-based correlation analysis. Compared with NC, the ALFF of HD was obviously decreased in the right caudate, right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), right superior medial frontal cortex and increased in the bilateral cerebellum, left superior temporal gyrus and left superior occipital gyrus. Of the six regions, only the ALFF value of right caudate had a negative correlation with heroin use. Setting the six regions as "seeds", we found the functional connectivity between the right caudate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) was reduced but that between the right caudate and cerebellum was enhanced. Besides, an abnormal lateral PFC-dACC connection was also observed in HD.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The observations of dysfunction of fronto-striatal and fronto-cerebellar circuit in HD implicate an altered balance between local neuronal assemblies activity and their integrated network organization pattern which may be involved in the process from voluntary to habitual and compulsive drug use.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Tangdu Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.
authors.forename: Yarong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Haifeng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Jiajie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003710:Demography; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006556:Heroin Dependence / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology; D012146:Rest / Q000502:physiology*