Potenza, M. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2020

Brain Anatomical Covariation Patterns Linked to Binge Drinking and Age at First Full Drink Prior to 21 Years

Binge drinking and age at first full drink of alcohol prior to 21 years (AFD<21) have been linked to neuroanatomical differences in cortical and subcortical grey matter (GM) volume, cortical thickness, and surface area. Despite the potential to reveal novel network-level relationships, structural covariation patterns among these morphological measures have yet to be examined relative to binge drinking and AFD<21. Here, we used the Joint and Individual Variance Explained (JIVE) method to characterize structural covariation patterns common across and specific to morphological measures in 293 participants (149 individuals with binge drinking and 144 healthy controls) from the Human Connectome Project (HCP). An independent dataset (Nathan Kline Institute Rockland Sample; NKI-RS) was used to examine reproducibility/ generalizability. We identified a highly reproducible joint component dominated by structural covariation between GM volume in the brainstem and thalamus proper, and GM volume and surface area in prefrontal cortical regions. Using linear mixed regression models, we found that this joint component was related to AFD<21 in both the HCP and NKI-RS datasets, whereas the individual thickness component associated with binge drinking and AFD<21 in the HCP dataset was not statistically significant in the NKI-RS sample. Taken together, our results show that a highly reproducible structural pattern involving covariation in brain regions relevant to thalamic-PFC-brainstem neural circuitry is linked to age at first full drink.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Altered brain function in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa: A hierarchical series of task-based fMRI meta-analyses

BackgroundMany structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have reported differences in brain functional anatomy associated with eating disorders (EDs). We aimed to quantitatively synthesize the current literature of anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) with a goal of deriving a consensus across these studies. MethodsWe performed a hierarchical series of 49 activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses of 101 experiments from 63 studies at the disorder (AN+BN), diagnosis (AN or BN), and task (food-, body-, emotion- or cognitive function-related tasks) levels. We further performed sub-analyses at the diagnosis level to assess the influence of disease stage (current or recovered AN), subtype (restrictive AN, rAN), psychiatric comorbidity, medication, and data processing. ResultsWe did not observe consistent differences in brain activity across all hierarchies. Rather, we observed differences in brain activity in the right fusiform, left inferior parietal lobule and left precuneus that were primarily related to food (representing 19 experiments) and emotion (25 experiments) tasks performed by current AN patients (56 experiments). ConclusionsThe task-based functional MRI literature in AN and BN represents a heterogenous set of tasks and patients. Given this heterogeneity, we found very limited convergence across a rather large literature. Such limited convergence suggests individual task-based studies of EDs should be interpreted cautiously. We recommend that future studies of EDs carefully characterize patients based on nutritional status and that, beyond clinical diagnosis, studies utilize a trait- or cognitive-domain-based approach to define their populations of interest. Meta-ananlysis Registration"Meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of eating disorders", https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero (Registration Number: CRD42018086497).

neuroscience↗