Functional and structural brain connectivity of young binge drinkers: a follow-up study

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Correas, A., Cuesta, P., López-Caneda, Eduardo, Rodríguez Holguín, S., García-Moreno, L. M., Pineda-Pardo, J. A., Cadaveira, F., Maestú, F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Research 10.08.2016; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/154/53/2423; 692/617/375; 9/30; Adolescent; Adolescents; Alcohol Drinking; Alcohol use; Alcoholism; Binge Drinking; Binge Drinking - physiopathology; Brain; Brain - physiology; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Case-Control Studies; Ciências Sociais; Diffusion Tensor Imaging; Drinking behavior; Drug abuse; Drunkenness; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetoencephalography; Male; multidisciplinary; Neural networks; Neural Pathways; Neural Pathways - drug effects; Neuroimaging; Psicologia; Science; Science & Technology; Structure-function relationships; Young Adult
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep31293

Adolescence is a period of ongoing brain maturation characterized by hierarchical changes in the functional and structural networks. For this reason, the young brain is particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of alcohol. Nowadays, binge drinking is a pattern of alcohol consumption increasingly prevalent among adolescents. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the evolution of the functional and anatomical connectivity of the Default Mode Network (DMN) in young binge drinkers along two years. Magnetoencephalography signal during eyes closed resting state as well as Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) were acquired twice within a 2-year interval from 39 undergraduate students (22 controls, 17 binge drinkers) with neither personal nor family history of alcoholism. The group comparison showed that, after maintaining a binge drinking pattern along at least two years, binge drinkers displayed an increased brain connectivity of the DMN in comparison with the control group. On the other hand, the structural connectivity did not show significant differences neither between groups nor over the time. These findings point out that a continued pattern of binge drinking leads to functional alterations in the normal brain maturation process, even before anatomical changes can be detected. This study was supported by the projects SPI/2010 and SPI/2010/051 from Spanish Ministry of Health and Social Politics (National Plan on Drugs). Funding was also provided from the SFRH/BPD/109750/2015 Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology as well as the Research Center on Psychology (UID/PSI/01662/2013).