Association of Drinking Problems and Duration of Alcohol Use to Inhibitory Control in Nondependent Young Adult Social Drinkers.
- Authors
- Hu, Sien; Zhang, Sheng; Chao, Herta H; Krystal, John H; Li, Chiang-Shan R
- Year
- 2016
- Journal
- Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research
- PMID
- 26833431
- DOI
- 10.1111/acer.12964
- PMCID
- PMC4742397
BACKGROUND: Deficits in inhibitory control have been widely implicated in alcohol misuse. However, the literature does not readily distinguish the effects of drinking problems and chronic alcohol use. Here, we examined how years of drinking and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score each influences the cerebral responses to inhibitory control in nondependent drinkers. METHODS: Fifty-seven adult drinkers and 57 age- and gender-matched nondrinkers participated in one 40-minute functional magnetic resonance imaging scan of the stop signal task. Data were preprocessed and modeled using SPM8. In a regression model, we contrasted stop and go success trials for individuals and examined activities of response inhibition each in link with the AUDIT score and years of alcohol use in group analyses. We specified the effects of duration of use by contrasting regional activations of drinkers and age-related changes in nondrinkers. In mediation analyses, we investigated how regional activities mediate the relationship between drinking problems and response inhibition. RESULTS: Higher AUDIT score but not years of drinking was positively correlated with prolonged stop signal reaction time (SSRT) and diminished responses in the cerebellum, thalamus, frontal and parietal regions, independent of years of alcohol use. Further, activity of the thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex, and presupplementary motor area significantly mediates the association, bidirectionally, between the AUDIT score and SSRT. The duration of alcohol use was associated with decreased activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus extending to superior temporal gyrus, which was not observed for age-related changes in nondrinkers. CONCLUSIONS: The results distinguished the association of drinking problems and years of alcohol use to inhibitory control in young adult nondependent drinkers. These new findings extend the imaging literature of alcohol misuse and may have implications for treatment to prevent the escalation from social to dependent drinking. More research is needed to confirm age-independent neural correlates of years of alcohol use.
(a) One-sample t test of drinkers; (b) One-sample t test of non-drinkers; (1c) Two-sample t test: brain regions showing greater activation in drinkers than in non-drinkers (yellow), and in non-drinkers than in drinkers (cyan). SS: stop success trials; GS: go success trials.
Linear regressions: regional activations to response inhibition in association with the AUDIT score and years of alcohol use in drinkers, and activations in association with age in non-drinkers. SS: stop success trials; GS: go success trials. purple: positive correlation; blue/green: negative correlation.
Regional activations negatively associated with the AUDIT score (blue, as in Figure 2a) and SSRT (turquoise) with overlapping areas (cyan, circled and labeled) in drinkers. SS: stop success trials; GS: go success trials. L: Left, MFG: middle frontal gyrus; dACC/SFG: dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/superior frontal gyrus; pre-SMA: pre-supplementary motor area.
Mediation analyses testing Model 1: whether voxel activity mediates the correlation between the AUDIT score (X) and SSRT (Y); Model 2: whether voxel activity mediates the correlation between SSRT (X) and the AUDIT score (Y); Model 3: whether SSRT mediates the correlation between voxel activity (X) and the AUDIT score (Y); Model 4: whether the AUDIT score mediates the correlation between voxel activity (X) and SSRT (Y). β: regression coefficients; L: left; dACC: dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; SFG: superior frontal gyrus; MFG: middle frontal gyrus; pre-SMA: pre-supplementary motor area.
| # | Section | Preview |
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| 40 | Discussion — Limitations of the study and conclusions | In summary, we showed that drinking problems as captured by the AUDIT score was associated with… |
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| Sex differences in the interacting roles of impulsivity and positive alcohol expectancy in problem drinking: A structural brain imaging study. | Ide JS et al. | — | 2017 | → |