Alcoholism gender differences in brain responsivity to emotional stimuli

Sawyer, Kayle S.; Maleki, Nasim; Urban, Trinity; Marinković, Ksenija; Karson, Steven; Ruiz, Susan Mosher; Harris, Gordon J.; Oscar‐Berman, Marlene

doi:10.7554/elife.41723

Cited by 24 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…AUD-related gender effects on brain structure also have been described, involving white matter volume [39][40][41][42], morphometry of the brain reward system [43], and cerebellar subregional volumes [44]. Additionally, we have reported AUD-related gender-dimorphic effects in multiple functional domains including emotional processing [45], personality [46], and drinking motives [5,47]. However, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of AUD-related gender differences in the brain during performance of tasks involving emotion are rare [45].…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Additionally, we have reported AUD-related gender-dimorphic effects in multiple functional domains including emotional processing [45], personality [46], and drinking motives [5,47]. However, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of AUD-related gender differences in the brain during performance of tasks involving emotion are rare [45].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Across brain regions, previous literature has described abnormalities in several directions, with women evidencing greater brain activitivation in response to emotional stimuli, men having more brain activity, or having undetectable gender differences [5,11,45,[48][49][50]. Based upon prior research in our laboratory, wherein brain regions of AUDw (compared to NCw) were found to be overactive in response to highly charged emotional stimuli [45], in the present study we hypothesized that the pattern of AUD-related activation abnormalities would differ for men and women, and the brain responses to emotional faces by the AUDw would be hyperactive. Additionally, we expected to replicate prior results [45,51] showing widespread lower responses in AUDm than NCm.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Brain responsivity to emotional faces differs in men and women with and without a history of alcohol use disorder

et al. 2021

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Inclusion of women in research on Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) has shown that gender differences contribute to unique profiles of cognitive, emotional, and neuropsychological dysfunction. We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of abstinent individuals with a history of AUD (21 women [AUDw], 21 men [AUDm]) and demographically similar non-AUD control (NC) participants without AUD (21 women [NCw], 21 men [NCm]) to explore how gender and AUD interact to influence brain responses during emotional processing and memory. Participants completed a delayed match-to-sample emotional face memory fMRI task, and brain activation contrasts between a fixation stimulus and pictures of emotional face elicited a similar overall pattern of activation for all four groups. Significant Group by Gender interactions revealed two activation clusters. A cluster in an anterior portion of the middle and superior temporal gyrus, elicited lower activation to the fixation stimulus than to faces for the AUDw as compared to the NCw; that abnormality was more pronounced than the one observed for men. Another cluster in the medial portion of the superior frontal cortex elicited higher activation to the faces by AUDm than NCm, a difference that was more evident than the one observed for women. Together, these findings have added new evidence of AUD-related gender differences in neural responses to facial expressions of emotion.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Brain responsivity to emotional faces differs in men and women with and without a history of alcohol use disorder

et al. 2021

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“…However, it is not clear why despite the overlap between neural pathways underlying chronic pain and alcohol abuse, as well as the high comorbidity of both of those conditions with depression, the burden of depressive disorders is greater in people with ALC. Abnormalities in brain reward areas such as prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and insula, are consistently reported in association with chronic pain [18] and addictions [8,39]. Those same cortical regions are part of the depression neurocircuitry, but additionally, the ventral striatum, another reward system structure, has been reported to play a central role in depressive disorders [19].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chronic Pain in Relation to Depressive Disorders and Alcohol Abuse

Maleki

Oscar‐Berman

2020

Brain Sciences

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Chronic pain disorders have been associated separately with neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression and alcohol abuse. However, in individuals who suffer from non-cancer chronic pain disorders, it is not clear if the burden of depressive disorders is similar for those with and without a history of alcohol abuse. Using data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), we found depressive disorders to have a high burden in men and women with a history of alcohol abuse, independently of the presence or absence of chronic pain. We also found that, although the incidence of persistent depressive disorder was comparable in men and women with a history of alcohol abuse, and significantly higher than in control men and women, the incidence of a major depressive episode was higher in women with a history of alcohol abuse independently of the presence or absence of chronic pain. The age of onset of depressive disorders, independently of pain status, was younger for individuals with a history of alcohol abuse. The findings of this study have important implications for the clinical management of individuals who suffer from chronic pain comorbidly with depression and/or alcohol abuse.

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“…Using software that provides automatic segmentation of hippocampal subfield volumes [6], three studies of abnormalities in AUD have reported smaller volumes of the subiculum, presubiculum, CA1, CA2+3, and CA4, or other parts of the hippocampus including dentate gyrus, hippocampal-amygdaloid transition area (HATA), and the fimbria [19][20][21]. In addition to brain abnormalities associated with AUD, interactions with age and gender have been revealed [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. While the influence of age has been exemplified by a significant interaction of reduced volume of the CA2+3 region [19], hippocampal subfield projects in which women were included did not examine gender interactions [19,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hippocampal subfield volumes in abstinent men and women with a history of alcohol use disorder

et al. 2020

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Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) has been associated with abnormalities in hippocampal volumes, but these relationships have not been fully explored with respect to sub-regional volumes, nor in association with individual characteristics such as age, gender differences, drinking history, and memory. The present study examined the impact of those variables in relation to hippocampal subfield volumes in abstinent men and women with a history of AUD. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 3 Tesla, we obtained brain images from 67 participants with AUD (31 women) and 64 nonalcoholic control (NC) participants (31 women). The average duration of the most recent period of sobriety for AUD participants was 7.1 years. We used Freesurfer 6.0 to segment the hippocampus into 12 regions. These were imputed into statistical models to examine the relationships of brain volume with AUD group, age, gender, memory, and drinking history. Interactions with gender and age were of particular interest. Compared to the NC group, the AUD group had approximately 5% smaller subiculum, CA1, molecular layer, and hippocampal tail regions. Age was negatively associated with volumes for the AUD group in the subiculum and the hippocampal tail, but no significant interactions with gender were identified. The relationships for delayed and immediate memory with hippocampal tail volume differed for AUD and NC groups: Higher scores on tests of immediate and delayed memory were associated with smaller volumes in the AUD group, but larger volumes in the NC group. Length of sobriety was associated with decreasing CA1 volume in women (0.19% per year) and increasing volume size in men (0.38% per year). The course of abstinence on CA1 volume differed for men and women, and the differential relationships of subfield volumes to age and memory could indicate a distinction in the impact of AUD on functions of the hippocampal tail. These findings confirm and extend evidence that AUD, age, gender, memory, and abstinence differentially impact volumes of component parts of the hippocampus.

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Alcoholism gender differences in brain responsivity to emotional stimuli

Cited by 24 publications

References 76 publications

Brain responsivity to emotional faces differs in men and women with and without a history of alcohol use disorder

Brain responsivity to emotional faces differs in men and women with and without a history of alcohol use disorder

Chronic Pain in Relation to Depressive Disorders and Alcohol Abuse

Hippocampal subfield volumes in abstinent men and women with a history of alcohol use disorder

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