Alcoholism Gender Differences in Brain Responsivity to Emotional Stimuli

Abstract

Men and women may use alcohol to regulate their emotions differently, with corresponding differences in neural responses. We examined how photographs of emotional stimuli impacted brain activity obtained through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) from 42 alcoholic (25 women) and 46 nonalcoholic (24 women) participants. Brain responsivity was blunted in alcoholic compared to nonalcoholic groups. Further analyses indicated significant gender differences in the impact of alcoholism. Brain activation of the alcoholic men (ALC M ) was significantly lower than that of the alcoholic women (ALC W ) and nonalcoholic men (NC M ) in regions including the inferior parietal gyrus, anterior cingulate gyrus, and postcentral gyrus, whereas activation was higher in the ALC W than in the nonalcoholic women (NC W ) in superior frontal and supramarginal cortical regions. The reduced brain reactivity of ALC M and increases for ALC W highlighted divergent brain regions and gender effects, suggesting possible differences in the underlying basis for development of alcohol use disorders.

Neurophysiological and Interpersonal Correlates of Emotional Face Processing in Alcohol Use Disorder

“…Notably, social and emotion processing rely on neural networks and component processes that overlap, albeit incompletely, with those underlying the more vulnerable cognitive domains (Muller‐Oehring and Schulte, ). Leveraging this commonality, a growing number of studies investigating social/emotion compromise in AUDs employ neurobehavioral methods including both behavioral and neuroimaging/physiological measures (e.g., Salloum et al., ; Sawyer et al., ). Given the importance of facial expressions in interpersonal and social contexts, many investigations probe the integrity of emotion processing using variations on emotional facial expression (EFE) tasks.…”

Alcohol's Unique Effects on Cognition in Women: A 2020 (Re)view to Envision Future Research and Treatment

“… 103 By contrast, an fMRI study conducted in long-term abstinent individuals with AUD reported sex-related differences in the pattern of brain responsivity to emotional stimuli, with lower activation in the rostral middle and superior frontal cortex, precentral gyrus, and inferior parietal cortex in men with AUD than in control men, whereas higher activation in superior frontal and supramarginal cortices were observed in women with AUD compared to control women. 104 As suggested, these specificities in brain reactivity between men and women during emotional processing may reflect sex-related differences in the emotional mechanisms leading to the development of AUD.…”

Brain Responsivity to Emotional Faces Differs in Alcoholic Men and Women

“…Further, the study by LoPresti and colleagues (2008) found differences in orbitofrontal cortex activity between positive and negative faces in the explicit emotion memory task at the time of recall, but not at the time of encoding. Additionally, in a recent fMRI study employing stimuli eliciting stronger emotional reactions than facial expressions, we reported clear gender differences among alcoholics 39 .…”

“…There exist clear differences in how alcohol affects men and women physiologically and in how they progress from social to problem drinkers 31 . For example, we observed genderdimorphic effects in multiple domains including emotional processing, personality, and drinking motives 5,33 , brain white matter [34][35][36][37] , morphometry of the brain reward system 38 , and brain activity in response to emotional cues 39 .…”