Reduced resting‐state functional connectivity and sleep impairment in abstinent male alcohol‐dependent patients

Abstract

Alcohol dependence is associated with poor sleep quality, which has both been implicated with thalamocortical circuits function. To identify the possible roles of these circuits in the alcohol‐sleep association, we investigated the volume of both left and right thalamus and corresponding resting‐state functional connectivity (RSFC) differences between 15 alcohol‐dependent patients (AD) and 15 healthy controls (HC) male participants. The neuroimaging findings were then correlated with clinical variables, that is, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Additionally, mediation analysis was carried out to test whether the thalamocortical RSFC mediates the relationship between drinking behavior and sleep impairments in AD when applicable. We observed a significant positive correlation between AUDIT score and PSQI score in AD. Compared with HC, AD showed reduced RSFC between the left thalamus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and right caudate. We also observed a negative correlation between RSFC of the left thalamus–mPFC and PSQI score in AD. More importantly, the left thalamus–mPFC RSFC strength mediated the relationship between AUDIT score and PSQI score in AD. No significant difference was detected in the normalized volume of both left and right thalamus, and volumes were not significantly correlated with clinical variables. Our results demonstrate that AD show abnormal interactions within thalamocortical circuits in association with drinking behaviors and sleep impairments. It is hoped that our study focusing on thalamocortical circuits could provide new information on potential novel therapeutic targets for treatment of sleep impairment in alcohol‐dependent patients.

Reduced thalamic resting‐state functional connectivity and impaired cognition in acute abstinent heroin users

“…In addition to the above effects of nicotine, alcohol use might affect the structure and function of thalamus. Abstinent male alcohol users showed reduced thalamic RSFC compared with controls (Liu et al, 2019). Another study reported abnormal brain structure, with higher fractional anisotropy of thalamus reported in alcohol use disorder (Pandey et al, 2018).…”

“…Reduced cortico‐cortical/subcortical functional connectivity had been illustrated in heroin studies (Li et al, 2018; Lin et al, 2018; Ma et al, 2010; Zou et al, 2015). In contrast, researches on thalamo‐cortical/subcortical RSFC has been very limited in HU, although it has been reported in alcohol‐, cocaine‐, nicotine‐, and ketamine‐related studies (Liao et al, 2016; Liu et al, 2019; Tomasi et al, 2010; Wang et al, 2017; Yuan, Yu, et al, 2016; Zhornitsky et al, 2018). Consistent with previous heroin study (Denier et al, 2015), we detected decreased thalamo‐MTG RSFC in acute abstinent HU relative to HCs (Figure 2a).…”

Effects of long-term adolescent alcohol consumption on white matter integrity and their correlations with metabolic alterations

“…Cigarette smoking was more prevalent in the moderate-to-heavy drinking (45.7%) than light-drinking (7.4%) group, and this between-group difference tended to be larger in females in our sample (0 vs 55% in female and 16.7% vs. 33.3% in male light vs. moderate-to-heavy drinkers, respectively). Smoking has been reported to be associated with functional and structural brain abnormalities, especially within the fronto-striatal circuits (Hudkins et al, 2012;Yu et al, 2015;Yuan et al, 2016;Yuan et al, 2017;Yuan et al, 2018a,b;Liu et al, 2019). Although all participants in our study underwent a structured interview to exclude regular use or abuse of cigarette and smoking status was statistically controlled for during the DTI analyses, this confounding factor could potentially mitigate the alcohol-specific influence, especially within women groups in our sample.…”

The Inferior Colliculus in Alcoholism and Beyond

“…It is this more general rolethat is, the "alerting" or "attention-focusing" function of the inferior colliculus (cf., Latash, 1990) that is proposed herein to be the initial insult in alcohol addiction. Disruption of thalamocortical circuitry in AUD has been associated with craving (Modell et al, 1990), reduced arousal (Jia et al, 2007;Eckle and Todorovic, 2010), and sleep impairments (Liu et al, 2019), whereas disordered pontocerebellar circuitry has been associated with impaired balance and visuospatial abilities (Sullivan, 2003;Sullivan et al, 2010). Thus, it is proposed that the primary impairment in alcohol exposure is due to a lack of thalamocortical and pontocerebellar synchronization by the inferior colliculi (Figure 3).…”