Amplitude Of Low Frequency Fluctuation And Functional Connectivity In Alcohol Dependent Patients:A Resting-state FMRI Study

Objective:Using the methoud of low-freguency fluctuation(ALFF) and functional connectivity(FC) to observe the changes of cerebral local neuronal spontaneous activity between alcohol dependent patients(ADP) and normal controls and analysis the relationship between the damage and the clinical variables.Methods:Twenty-four ADP and twenty-five 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 AUDIT and SADQ to ensure that the ADP 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 and the difference of ALFF between addicts and controls was analyzed with two-sample t-test under REST software.Then taking the differentiated brain parts of ALFF as ROI, using functional connectivity method to analyze the changes of the connections of ADP in the whole brain.Finally, linear correlations were performed between the strength of ALFF and the score of clinical variables. Results:In comparison with the control group,the alcohol dependent group showed reduced ALFF in the right posterior cingulated, left precuneus,and right posterior lobe of cerebellum. FC showed that these three damaged regions had many abnormal connections with the cerebral and most of these disconnected regions were in DMN. AUDIT?SADQ scores negatively correlated with the right posterior lobe of cerebellum(r=-0.494,P=0.019;r=-0.486,P=0.022) and alcohol ages negatively correlated with the right posterior cingulated(r=-0.484,P=0.023). Conclusion:AD disturbed the spontaneous activity and connectivity pattern of DMN. Precuneus/posterior cingulated can be the vulnerability brain regions in ADP. The impairment in cognition and control of ADP may based on the negative activation in the right posterior cingulated, left precuneus,and right posterior lobe of cerebellum.