Does Alcohol Change the Brain?

What’s New in Psychology?

Does Alcohol Change the Brain?       

Jim Windell

 

            It is a widespread belief that when young people are exposed to alcohol their brain changes.

            But what if this isn’t true? What if the brains of people who use alcohol were different to begin with?

            If this were the case, it might help better understand the reasons for alcohol use.

            A new study, recently published in JAMA Network Open, questions the notion that alcohol changes the brain.

            Previous research has shown that substance use is associated with lower gray matter volume, thinner cortex, and less white matter integrity. The thinking was that these characteristics of the brains of substance users were brought on by alcohol or illicit drug use.

            However, investigators, led by Alex P. Miller, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University, analyzed data on 9,804 children (mean baseline age, 9.9 years; 76% White) at 22 U.S. sites. All were enrolled in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study that is examining brain and behavioral development from middle childhood to young adulthood.

           Miller and his associates collected information on the use of alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, and other illicit substances from in-person interviews at baseline and during each of the first three years, as well as interim phone interviews at 6, 18, and 30 months. MRI scans provided extensive brain structural data, including global and regional cortical volume, thickness, surface area, sulcal depth, and subcortical volume. The researchers found that of the total participants, 3,460 of them (35%) initiated substance use before age 15, with 90% also reporting alcohol use initiation. There was considerable overlap between the use of alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis.

           What they wanted to determine was whether baseline neuroanatomical variability was associated with any substance use initiation before or up to three years following initial neuroimaging scans.

           The researchers found that compared with no substance use initiation, any substance use initiation was associated with larger global neuroanatomical indices, including whole brain, total intracranial, cortical, and subcortical volumes, as well as greater total cortical surface area.

           The direction of associations between cortical thickness and substance use initiation was regionally specific; any substance use initiation was characterized by thinner cortex in all frontal regions, but thicker cortex in all other lobes. It was also associated with larger regional brain volumes, deeper regional sulci, and differences in regional cortical surface area.

           Secondary analyses compared initiation of the three most commonly used substances in early adolescence (alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis) with no substance use. Their findings for alcohol are very similar to those for any substance use. However, the study uncovered additional significant associations, including greater left lateral occipital volume and bilateral para-hippocampal gyri cortical thickness, and less bilateral superior frontal gyri cortical thickness.

           What does this all mean?

           The researcher’s analysis further challenges current models of addiction. When Miller and his colleagues looked only at the 1,203 youth who initiated substance use after the baseline neuroimaging session, they found most associations preceded substance use.

           According to the authors of the study: “That regional associations may precede substance use initiation, including less cortical thickness in the right rostral middle frontal gyrus, challenges predominant interpretations that these associations arise largely due to neurotoxic consequences of exposure and increases the plausibility that these features may, at least partially, reflect markers of predispositional risk.”

           Although the authors note that they didn’t look at sociodemographic, environmental, and genetic variables, these factors could be linked to both neuroanatomical variability and substance use initiation. However, they did say that the ABCD Study provides “a robust and large database of longitudinal data” that goes beyond previous neuroimaging research “to understand the bidirectional relationship between brain structure and substance use.”

           “The hope is that these types of studies, in conjunction with other data on environmental exposures and genetic risk, could help change how we think about the development of substance use disorders and inform more accurate models of addiction moving forward,” Miller said in a press release.

           To read the original article, find it with this reference:

Miller, A.P., Baranger, D.A.A., Paul, S.E., et al. (2024). Neuroanatomical variability and substance use initiation in late childhood and early adolescenceJAMA Network Open, 7(12):e2452027. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.52027

 

 

 

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