Aging clearly plays a role in brain volume variation (Fotenos, Mintun, Snyder, Morris, & Buckner, 2008). Because of this we use a comparison with 75 healthy control subjects as a method to quantify brain volume variations associated with AUD. From Fig. 6 we see the percent change in component weights between subjects with AUD and control subjects. There are significant differences between the groups in overall white matter, cerebella and caudate as well as 5th ventricle volume. Differences from zero indicate larger or smaller volumes versus controls. Interestingly, there is little change in overall gray matter between the two groups indicating that smaller overall gray matter volumes may largely be attributed to normal aging effects. The differences in cerebellar, caudate, white matter and 5th ventricle volumes however, indicate there is significant variation seen in the subjects with AUD not present in the control subjects. This is a largely heuristic comparison; however it does indicate that the variation in regional volumes is not due to normal aging.
