Archival ReportDegradation of Association and Projection White Matter Systems in Alcoholism Detected with Quantitative Fiber Tracking
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Participants
Data were combined from two studies on alcoholism (13, 20, 33, 34, 35, 36). Extensive clinical and demographic descriptions and analysis appear elsewhere (37, 38). Control data were from men and women who matched the alcoholic groups herein in age range (39). Demographic data of the 175 men and women in the current analysis appear in Table 1.
Participants with alcoholism were recruited by referral from outpatient substance abuse treatment centers. Informed consent followed procedures approved by
Laterality Effects and Alcoholism
Analysis of variance tested group-by-hemisphere interactions in each bilateral fiber bundle. Significant group effects and hemisphere effects were found for 8 of 10 bundles (Tables 1 and 2 in Supplement 1), but in no case was the group-by-hemisphere interaction significant with family-wise Bonferroni correction for significance. Thus, we found no evidence that alcoholism significantly altered any normal left-right asymmetry for a given bundle. Subsequent analyses combined values for FA or
Discussion
Diffusion tensor imaging anisotropy and diffusivity measures derived from quantitative fiber tracking of selective fiber bundles enabled in vivo examination of the effect of chronic excessive alcohol consumption on the microstructural integrity of major fiber bundles. These data extend earlier reports of macrostructural and microstructural vulnerability of frontal regions to alcohol dependence by assessing FA of specific white matter tracts and bundles and three measures of diffusivity: ADC and
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