of the present study, future studies should also control for other substance use in large clinical samples, and/or in more controlled animal studies to confirm the current findings. Some of the interpretations made in the present study are speculative in nature, given that those hypotheses were not directly tested and have been inferred from associations and evidence reported in the literature (e.g., Harsan et al., 2006, Rulseh et al., 2013). Future longitudinal structural and functional studies can specifically test these conclusions by investigating additional measures and analyses. Future investigations would also benefit from an integrative approach, employing a variety of complementary technologies to analyze and understand the interconnectivity of structural, functional, and behavioral systems affected by AUD. For example, combining volumetric, DTI, and histological examination of GM and WM would be important to shed light on causes of changes and on the basis of anisotropy observed in different parts of the brain along with functional imaging measures in order to directly assess relationships between structural and functional abnormalities.
