To investigate adult brain structure following adolescent binge ethanol treatment, we performed MRI on postmortem adult mouse brains. Twenty brain regions were initially segmented in an automatic fashion to identify candidate regions for further manual segmentation (Fig. 6, Fig. 7, Fig. 8, Fig. 9). Although not statistically different, mean total brain volume and neocortex volume were 1-2% lower in AE treatment groups, being 441mm3 vs 435 mm3 and 152 mm3 vs 148 mm3 in young adult control and adolescent alcohol treated animals (both P79) respectively. Further segmentation of the frontal cortex (from the genu of the corpus callosum forward) found no differences in volume (not shown). Some brain regions such as the globus pallidus and internal capsule tended to show increased mean volumes in adults following adolescent binge alcohol treatment that were not statistically significant. Four brain regions in adolescent binge treated young adults showed >4% decreases in mean volume, basal forebrain−4.4% (p<0.02), olfactory bulb −6.5% (p<0.046), anterior commissure −5.1% (p<0.04) and hippocampus −4.5% (p=0.11) (Table 3). These findings suggest that adolescent binge alcohol treatment has brain region specific effects.
