Analysis of the continuous measures revealed that NAA and Cho levels in frontal and thalamic regions correlated with length of sobriety, where lower levels occurred with more recent drinking (frontal NAA r=0.59, p=0.006, Rho=0.37, p=0.105; thalamus NAA r=0.51, p=0.022, Rho=0.50, p=0.024; frontal Cho r=0.68, p=0.001, Rho=0.41, p=0.073; thalamus Cho r=0.54, p=0.015, Rho=0.50, p=0.025). At study initiation, AUD-A had nominally more days sober than AUD-R or AUD-lost, likely contributing to the higher NAA and Cho levels in the AUD-A group. Thus, when AUD-R and AUD-lost were combined into a single group (AUD-B), they had fewer days sober relative to AUD-A (p=.02). Although lifetime alcohol consumption was not significantly related to any metabolite, longer length of alcohol dependence modestly correlated with higher tCr (r=0.48, p=0.039, Rho=0.51, p=0.027) and Cho (r=0.41, p=0.083, Rho=0.48, p=0.039) levels in the thalamus.
