A study of resting-state functional MRI in chronic alcoholics based on regional homogeneity

Objective To explore the features of brain spontaneous activity in resting state in chronic alcoholics.Methods Thirty three chronic alcoholics and 36 healthy control subjects,well matched in gender,age,education and handedness,were enrolled as the chronic alcoholics group and control group respectively.All the subjects were asked to perform both MAST and ADS to ensure that the alcohol dependent individuals enrolled in this study reached moderate alcohol dependent.All the subjects performed MR scanning in a 3.0 T MR scanner.The original data was sent to the computer,DPARSF software was used to perform data processing which was based on MATLABE,SPM and REST operating environment.Then,standard whole brain ReHo maps were obtained.Two-sample t tests were performed in ReHo data in the two groups respectively under REST software.The Rest Slice Viewer software within the REST software package was used to view the statistical results.Each time series of brain regions were extracted,and correlation analyses was performed with MAST and ADS scores,and the corresponding correlation coefficient values were recorded.Results After the motion detection,a total of 12 patients(7 in the control group and 5 in the experimental group) were excluded,57 subjects(29 in the control group and 28 in the experimental group) were finally included.Compared with the healthy controls,the ReHo of bilateral parahippocampal gyrus,bilateral occipital visual cortex,left frontal motor area,the left middle frontal gyrus,right under the top edge of the angular gyrus,the right front lateral prefrontal cortex were significantly increased(voxel range,54-219,t=3.0132-4.7233,P＜0.05),while the ReHo of the left parahippocampal gyrus,the left superior temporal gyrus,left under the top edge of the angular gyrus,the left cingulate gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule were significantly decreased in resting state in chronic alcoholics(voxel range,59-617,t=-4.7473-3.2287,P＜0.05).MAST scores correlated with the right occipital visual cortex(r=-0.4389,the number of voxels to 187,P＜0.05),and ADS scores with the left parahippocampal gyrus(r=0.2921,voxel numbers 138,P＜0.05).Conclusion It might imply that multiple brain areas had abnormal ReHo in chronic alcoholics at resting state,especially in visual association area;which can positively correlate with degree of alcohol dependence. Key words: Alcohol drinking;  Behavior, addictive ;  Magnetic resonance imaging;  Neural networks(computer)