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Alcoholism and sexual dimorphism in the middle longitudinal fascicle: a pilot study

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Abstract

Alcoholism can lead to a complex mixture of cognitive and emotional deficits associated with abnormalities in fronto-cortico-striatal-limbic brain circuitries. Given the broad variety of neurobehavioral symptoms, one would also expect alterations of postrolandic neocortical systems. Thus, we used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to study the integrity of the middle longitudinal fascicle (MdLF), a major postrolandic association white matter tract that extends from the superior temporal gyrus to the parietal and occipital lobes, in individuals with a history of chronic alcohol abuse. DTI data were acquired on a 3 Tesla scanner in 30 abstinent alcoholics (AL; 9 men) and 25 nonalcoholic controls (NC; 8 men). The MdLF was determined using DTI-based tractography. Volume of the tract, fractional anisotropy (FA), radial (RD), and axial (AD) diffusivity, were compared between AL and NC, with sex and hemispheric laterality as independent variables. The association of DTI measures with neuropsychological performance was evaluated. Men showed bilateral reduction of MdLF volume and abnormal diffusion measurements of the left MdLF. Analyses also indicated that the left MdLF diffusion measurements in AL men were negatively associated with Verbal IQ and verbal fluency test scores. Abstinent alcoholic men display macrostructural abnormalities in the MdLF bilaterally, indicating an overall white matter deficit. Additionally, microstructural deficits of the left MdLF suggest more specific alterations associated with verbal skills in men.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mary M. Valmas, Anne-Mette Guldberg, and Diane Merritt for recruitment assistance and neuropsychological testing, and Trinity Urban and Alan Poey for assistance with brain scan acquisition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Johanna Seitz, Marek Kubicki & Nikos Makris

  2. Behavioral Neuroscience and Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA

    Kayle S. Sawyer, Marlene Oscar-Berman & Susan M. Ruiz

  3. VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    Kayle S. Sawyer, Marlene Oscar-Berman & Susan M. Ruiz

  4. Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology and Radiology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 149 13th Street, Charlestown, MA, 02129, USA

    Kayle S. Sawyer, George Papadimitriou, Marlene Oscar-Berman, Isaac Ng, Antoni Kubicki, Palig Mouradian, Susan M. Ruiz, Gordon J. Harris & Nikos Makris

  5. Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Marek Kubicki

  6. Radiology Computer Aided Diagnostics Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Gordon J. Harris

Authors
  1. Johanna Seitz
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  2. Kayle S. Sawyer
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  3. George Papadimitriou
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  4. Marlene Oscar-Berman
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  5. Isaac Ng
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  6. Antoni Kubicki
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  7. Palig Mouradian
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  9. Marek Kubicki
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  11. Nikos Makris
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nikos Makris.

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Funding

This work was supported by funds from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) grants R01AA07112 and K05AA00219, and by the US Department of Veterans Affairs Clinical Science Research and Development grant to Dr. Marlene Oscar Berman; by the National Institutes of Health grants P50MH080272 and R01 MH102377 to Dr. Marek Kubicki; by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke grants R21NS077059 and R21NS079905, and by the National Institute on Aging grant R01AG042512 to Dr. Nikos Makris. The contents do not represent the views of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

Conflict of interest

The Authors Johanna Seitz, Kayle S. Sawyer, Susan M. Ruiz, George Papadimitriou, Isaac Ng, Antoni Kubicki, Palig Mouradian, Marlene Oscar-Berman, Marek Kubicki, Gordon J. Harris, and Nikos Makris have declared that there are no conflicts of interest in relation to the subject of this study.

Human and animal rights

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Marlene Oscar-Berman, Marek Kubicki, Gordon J. Harris and Nikos Makris contributed equally.

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Seitz, J., Sawyer, K.S., Papadimitriou, G. et al. Alcoholism and sexual dimorphism in the middle longitudinal fascicle: a pilot study. Brain Imaging and Behavior 11, 1006–1017 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-016-9579-5

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