Altered white matter integrity in whole brain and segments of corpus callosum, in young social drinkers with binge drinking pattern

Abstract

Binge drinking is associated with impaired cognitive functioning, but the relationship of cognitive impairments and white matter integrity is less known. We used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate the relationships of binge drinking, whole brain white matter integrity and cognitive performance during young adulthood (18 to 25 years), a period of continued brain development in two sessions 1 year apart. Binge drinkers (n = 20) and non-binge drinkers (n = 20) underwent DTI and completed measures of spatial working memory and motor impulsivity. Fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure derived from DTI, was estimated from whole brain and from five segments of the corpus callosum (CC): prefrontal, premotor/supplementary motor, motor, (SMA) sensory and parietal/temporal/occipital (PTO). FA was lower for binge than for non-binge men but not women at Session 1 and 2 for all measurements except for FA in the motor segment, which was significantly increased from Session 1 to Session 2. Lower FA in the prefrontal and PTO CC segments was associated with higher binge score, whereas lower FA in all five segments was associated with greater drug use in men and worse spatial working memory both in men and women. These findings extend the literature by showing that in early adulthood, binge drinking and drug use are linked with degradations in neural white matter and that compromised white matter at this period of brain development is linked with impaired cognitive functioning.

Advanced MR diffusion imaging and chemotherapy‐related changes in cerebral white matter microstructure of survivors of childhood bone and soft tissue sarcoma?

“…As described by Garg and colleagues (2015), the corpus callosum would be especially vulnerable to demyelination and inflammatory processes, which could reduce the intra-axonal compartment volume fraction in these regions. This region was already suggested to be vulnerable to toxicity earlier due to chemotherapy , but also due to alcohol abuse as well (Kapogiannis et al, 2012;Smith et al, 2017).…”

GABAA receptor subtype involvement in addictive behaviour

“…It is widely held that adolescent mammals are particularly sensitive to alcohol exposure, and that this sensitivity is especially severe when exposure is intermittent, such as occurs in humans with binge drinking (Smith et al . ; Stephens & Duka ). Recently, the Indiana group have reported a series of observations on altered gene expression (mRNA) in alcohol‐preferring P rats following three weeks consumption of alcohol in a ‘binge’ pattern, reaching blood levels of 100 mg/dL, over a period spanning postnatal days (PDs) 28–49 (McBride et al .…”

Effects of abstinence and chronic cigarette smoking on white matter microstructure in alcohol dependence: Diffusion tensor imaging at 4 T

“…We applied TBSS for determining microstructural differences between treatment-seeking alcohol-dependent individuals and light drinkers: FA was lower in fibers within frontal WM, limbic pathways, and between cortico-striatal regions; in the small group of patients, associations between drinking severity and regional FA were insignificant (Yeh et al, 2009). Other TBSS studies in alcohol dependence reported FA deficits specifically within cingulum, corpus callosum, fornix (Durkee et al, 2013; Trivedi et al, 2013; Pfefferbaum et al., 2014; Smith et al, 2015; Sorg et al, 2015), and superior longitudinal fasciculus (Pfefferbaum et al, 2014; Segobin et al, 2015). Microstructural abnormalities were most pronounced in major tracts within frontal WM (Fortier et al, 2014; Pfefferbaum et al, 2014; Sorg et al, 2015) and related to higher lifetime alcohol consumption (Sorg et al, 2015).…”