TY - JOUR
T1 - Brain volumes in alcohol use disorder
T2 - Do females and males differ? A whole-brain magnetic resonance imaging mega-analysis
AU - Maggioni, Eleonora
AU - Rossetti, Maria G.
AU - Allen, Nicholas B.
AU - Batalla, Albert
AU - Bellani, Marcella
AU - Chye, Yann
AU - Cousijn, Janna
AU - Goudriaan, Anna E.
AU - Hester, Robert
AU - Hutchison, Kent
AU - Li, Chiang-Shan R.
AU - Martin-Santos, Rocio
AU - Momenan, Reza
AU - Sinha, Rajita
AU - Schmaal, Lianne
AU - Solowij, Nadia
AU - Suo, Chao
AU - van Holst, Ruth J.
AU - Veltman, Dick J.
AU - Yücel, Murat
AU - Thompson, Paul M.
AU - Conrod, Patricia
AU - Mackey, Scott
AU - Garavan, Hugh
AU - Brambilla, Paolo
AU - Lorenzetti, Valentina
N1 - Funding Information: The study was partly supported by the ENIGMA Addiction R01 funding NIH/NIDA R01DA047119 and by the Italian Ministry of Health (Ricerca Corrente 2023). Dr. Eleonora Maggioni was partly supported by the Italian Ministry of Health (GR‐2019‐12370616) and by the BIAL Foundation (BIAL Foundation Grant Programme 2020/21, no. 288/2020). Dr. Dick Veltman received funding from the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMW) grant 31160004 from NWO. Drs. Anna E. Goudriaan and Ruth J. van Holst received funding from ZonMW grant 91676084 from NWO. Drs. Janna Cousijn and Anna E. Goudriaan received funding for the Cannabis Prospective study from ZonMW grant 31180002 from NWO. Dr. Reza Momenan was supported by the Intramural Clinical and Biological Research Program of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Dr. Rajita Sinha received funds from NIDA (PL30‐1DA024859‐01), the NIH National Center for Research Resources (UL1‐RR24925‐01), and NIAAA (R01‐AA013892). Dr. Nadia Solowij received funding from the Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Foundation for Biomedical Research, and National and Health and Medical Research Council Project grant 459111 and was supported by Australian Research Council Future Fellowship FT110100752. Prof. Murat Yücel was supported by National Health and Medical Research Council Fellowship #1117188 and the David Winston Turner Endowment Fund. Dr Valentina Lorenzetti was supported by The Australian Catholic University through a competitive scheme. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - Emerging evidence suggests distinct neurobiological correlates of alcohol use disorder (AUD) between sexes, which however remain largely unexplored. This work from ENIGMA Addiction Working Group aimed to characterize the sex differences in gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) correlates of AUD using a whole-brain, voxel-based, multi-tissue mega-analytic approach, thereby extending our recent surface-based region of interest findings on a nearly matching sample using a complementary methodological approach. T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 653 people with AUD and 326 controls was analyzed using voxel-based morphometry. The effects of group, sex, group-by-sex, and substance use severity in AUD on brain volumes were assessed using General Linear Models. Individuals with AUD relative to controls had lower GM volume in striatal, thalamic, cerebellar, and widespread cortical clusters. Group-by-sex effects were found in cerebellar GM and WM volumes, which were more affected by AUD in females than males. Smaller group-by-sex effects were also found in frontotemporal WM tracts, which were more affected in AUD females, and in temporo-occipital and midcingulate GM volumes, which were more affected in AUD males. AUD females but not males showed a negative association between monthly drinks and precentral GM volume. Our results suggest that AUD is associated with both shared and distinct widespread effects on GM and WM volumes in females and males. This evidence advances our previous region of interest knowledge, supporting the usefulness of adopting an exploratory perspective and the need to include sex as a relevant moderator variable in AUD.
AB - Emerging evidence suggests distinct neurobiological correlates of alcohol use disorder (AUD) between sexes, which however remain largely unexplored. This work from ENIGMA Addiction Working Group aimed to characterize the sex differences in gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) correlates of AUD using a whole-brain, voxel-based, multi-tissue mega-analytic approach, thereby extending our recent surface-based region of interest findings on a nearly matching sample using a complementary methodological approach. T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 653 people with AUD and 326 controls was analyzed using voxel-based morphometry. The effects of group, sex, group-by-sex, and substance use severity in AUD on brain volumes were assessed using General Linear Models. Individuals with AUD relative to controls had lower GM volume in striatal, thalamic, cerebellar, and widespread cortical clusters. Group-by-sex effects were found in cerebellar GM and WM volumes, which were more affected by AUD in females than males. Smaller group-by-sex effects were also found in frontotemporal WM tracts, which were more affected in AUD females, and in temporo-occipital and midcingulate GM volumes, which were more affected in AUD males. AUD females but not males showed a negative association between monthly drinks and precentral GM volume. Our results suggest that AUD is associated with both shared and distinct widespread effects on GM and WM volumes in females and males. This evidence advances our previous region of interest knowledge, supporting the usefulness of adopting an exploratory perspective and the need to include sex as a relevant moderator variable in AUD.
KW - MRI
KW - alcohol dependence
KW - alcohol use disorders
KW - sex
KW - voxel-based morphometry
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85165183512&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26404
DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26404
M3 - Article
C2 - 37436103
SN - 1065-9471
VL - 44
SP - 4652
EP - 4666
JO - Human brain mapping
JF - Human brain mapping
IS - 13
ER -