Hippocampal Subfield Volumes in Abstinent Men and Women with a History of Alcohol Use Disorder

Abstract

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 gender differences, age, 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 (31 women) with AUD and 63 healthy control (NC) participants (30 women) without AUD. We used Freesurfer 6.0 to segment the hippocampus into 12 regions. These were imputed into mixed models to examine the relationships of brain volume with AUD group, gender, age, drinking history, and memory.The AUD group had approximately 5% smaller CA1, hippocampal tail, and molecular layer regions than the NC group. Age was negatively associated with volumes for the AUD group in the hippocampal tail, subiculum, and presubiculum. The relationships for delayed and immediate memory with hippocampal tail volume differed for AUD and NC groups: Higher scores 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 (0.02% per year) and increasing volume size in men (0.03% per year). These findings confirm and extend evidence that AUD, gender, age, and abstinence differentially impact volumes of component parts of the hippocampus. The course of abstinence on CA1 volume differed for men and women, and the differential relationships of subregional volumes to age and memory could indicate a distinction in the impact of AUD on functions of the hippocampal tail.

Sex is a defining feature of neuroimaging phenotypes in major brain disorders

“…In a study of the sex effects of alcoholism on white matter microstructure, alcoholic males exhibited lower FA in the corpus callosum, SLF, arcuate fasciculus and external capsule compared to healthy controls, whereas alcoholic females exhibited higher FA in these regions compared to their control counterparts [Sawyer et al, 2018]. A recent substructural analysis from the same group showed that a longer duration of alcohol sobriety predicted larger volumes in the hippocampal CA1 for males, but smaller volumes in this region for females [Sawyer et al, 2019].…”

Long tracks of homozygosity predict the severity of alcohol use disorders in an American Indian population

“…Functional enrichment analysis of these genes identified several significantly enriched traits in the GWAS catalog: the top two being hippocampal tail volume, and cerebrospinal fluid amyloid beta 1-42 levels (CSF Aβ42). Reduced hippocampal tail volume has been reported in persons with AUD in a recent study (86), as well as in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) (87). CSF Aβ42 is one of the biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment and dementia (88), and may also be related to AUD.…”