Family history of alcohol use disorder is associated with brain structural and functional changes in healthy first-degree relatives.
Eur. psychiatr.. 2019-10-01; 62: 107-115
DOI: 10.1016/j.eurpsy.2019.08.003
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Background:
Neuroimaging studies of vulnerability to Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)
have identified structural and functional variations which might reflect
inheritable features in alcohol-naïve relatives of AUD individuals (FH+)
compared to controls having no such family history (FH-). However, prior
research did not simultaneously account for childhood maltreatment, any
clinically significant disorder and maternal AUD. Therefore, we mainly
aimed to investigate the brain structure and reward-related neural
activations (fMRI), using whole-brain analysis in FH+ young adults with
no prevalent confounders.
Methods:
46 FH+ and 45 FH- male and female participants had no severe
childhood maltreatment exposure, neither any psychiatric disorder or
AUD, nor a prenatal exposure to maternal AUD. We used a 3 T MRI coupled
with a whole brain voxel-based method to compare between groups the grey
matter volumes and activations in response to big
versus small wins during a Monetary
Incentive Delay task. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire score was used
as confounding variable in the analyses to account for the remaining
variance between groups.
Results:
Compared to FH- controls, FH+ participants had smaller grey matter
volumes in the frontal and cingulate regions as well as in the bilateral
nucleus accumbens and right insula. The FH+ participants’ fMRI datasets
denoted a blunted activation in the middle cingulum with respect to FH-
controls’ during the processing of reward magnitude, and a greater
activation in the anterior cingulum in response to anticipation of a
small win.
Conclusions:
Family history of alcohol use disorder is linked to structural and
functional variations including brain regions involved in reward
processes.