title: The Resting Brain of Alcoholics.
abstract: Chronic alcohol consumption affects multiple cognitive processes supported by far-reaching cerebral networks. To identify neurofunctional mechanisms underlying selective deficits, 27 sober alcoholics and 26 age-matched controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and neuropsychological testing. Functional connectivity analysis assessed the default mode network (DMN); integrative executive control (EC), salience (SA), and attention (AT) networks; primary somatosensory, auditory, and visual (VI) input networks; and subcortical reward (RW) and emotion (EM) networks. The groups showed an extensive overlap of intrinsic connectivity in all brain networks examined, suggesting overall integrity of large-scale functional networks. Despite these similar patterns, connectivity analyses identified network-specific differences of weaker within-network connectivity and expanded connectivity to regions outside the main networks in alcoholics compared with controls. For AT and VI networks, better task performance was related to expanded connectivity in alcoholism, supporting the concept of network expansion as a neural mechanism for functional compensation. For default mode, SA, RW, and EC networks, both weaker within-network and expanded outside-network connectivity correlated with poorer performance and mood. Current smoking contributed to some of these abnormalities in connectivity. The observed pattern of resting-state connectivity might reflect neural vulnerability of intrinsic networking in alcoholics and suggests a mechanism to explain signature impairments in EM, RW evaluation, and EC ability.
authors.affiliation: Neurosci Program, Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
authors.forename: Eva M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Müller-Oehring
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA Department of Psychiatry, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
authors.forename: Young-Chul
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Neurosci Program, Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
authors.forename: Adolf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pfefferbaum
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
authors.forename: Edith V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.affiliation: Neurosci Program, Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.
authors.forename: Tilman
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schulte
mesh_terms: D000437:Alcoholism / Q000473:pathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D012146:Rest; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: alcoholism; cerebral networks; cognition and emotion; fMRI; resting-state functional connectivity