Altered Cerebro-Cerebellar Dynamic Functional Connectivity in Alcohol Use Disorder: a Resting-State fMRI Study
Cerebellum. 2021-03-03; 20(6): 823-835
DOI: 10.1007/s12311-021-01241-y
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Abdallah M(1), Zahr NM(2)(3), Saranathan M(4), Honnorat N(2)(3), Farrugia N(5), Pfefferbaum A(2)(3), Sullivan EV(2)(3), Chanraud S(6)(7).
Author information:
(1)Aquitaine Institute of Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR CNRS 5287,
University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
(2)Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, 94305-5723, USA.
(3)Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA.
(4)Department of Medical Imaging, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
(5)Lab STICC, UMR CNRS 6285, IMT Atlantique, Brest, France.
(6)Aquitaine Institute of Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, UMR CNRS 5287,
University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France. .
(7)Laboratory of Neuroimaging and Daily Life, EPHE, PSL, Research University,
Bordeaux, France. .
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is widely associated with cerebellar dysfunction and
altered cerebro-cerebellar functional connectivity (FC) that lead to cognitive
impairments. Evidence for this association comes from resting-state functional
magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) studies that assess time-averaged measures
of FC across the duration of a typical scan. This approach, however, precludes
the assessment of potentially FC dynamics happening at faster timescales. In
this study, using rsfMRI data, we aim at exploring cerebro-cerebellar FC
dynamics in AUD patients (N = 18) and age- and sex-matched controls (N = 18). In
particular, we quantified group-level differences in the temporal variability of
FC between the posterior cerebellum and large-scale cognitive systems, and we
investigated the role of the cerebellum in large-scale brain dynamics in terms
of the temporal flexibility and integration of its regions. We found that,
relative to controls, the AUD group exhibited significantly greater FC
variability between the cerebellum and both the frontoparietal executive control
(F1,31 = 7.01, p(FDR) = 0.028) and ventral attention (F1,31 = 7.35, p(FDR) =
0.028) networks. Moreover, the AUD group exhibited significantly less
flexibility (F1,31 = 8.61, p(FDR) = 0.028) and greater integration (F1,31 =
9.11, p(FDR) = 0.028) in the cerebellum. Finally, in an exploratory analysis, we
found distributed changes in the dynamics of canonical large-scale networks in
AUD. Overall, this study brings evidence of AUD-related alterations in dynamic
FC within major cerebro-cerebellar networks. This pattern has implications for
explaining the development and maintenance of this disorder and improving our
understating of the cerebellum’s involvement in addiction.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business
Media, LLC part of Springer Nature.
Conflict of interest statement: Conflict of Interest The authors declare no
competing interests.