Association of Drinking Problems and Duration of Alcohol Use to Inhibitory Control in Nondependent Young Adult Social Drinkers

Abstract

Background Deficits in inhibitory control have been widely implicated in alcohol misuse. However, the literature does not readily distinguish the effects of drinking problems and chronic alcohol use. Here, we examined how years of drinking and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score each influences the cerebral responses to inhibitory control in non-dependent drinkers. Methods Fifty-seven adult drinkers and 57 age and gender matched non-drinkers participated in one 40-minute fMRI scan of the stop signal task. Data were pre-processed and modeled using SPM8. In a regression model, we contrasted stop and go success trials for individuals and examined activities of response inhibition each in link with the AUDIT score and years of alcohol use in group analyses. We specified the effects of duration of use by contrasting regional activations of drinkers and age-related changes in non-drinkers. In mediation analyses, we investigated how regional activities mediate the relationship between drinking problems and response inhibition. Results Higher AUDIT score but not years of drinking was positively correlated with prolonged stop signal reaction time (SSRT) and diminished responses in the cerebellum, thalamus, frontal and parietal regions, independent of years of alcohol use. Further, activity of the thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex, and pre-supplementary motor area significantly mediates the association, bidirectionally, between the AUDIT score and SSRT. The duration of alcohol use was associated with decreased activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus extending to superior temporal gyrus, which was not observed for age-related changes in non-drinkers. Conclusions The results distinguished the association of drinking problems and years of alcohol use to inhibitory control in young adult non-dependent drinkers. These new findings extend the imaging literature of alcohol misuse and may have implications for treatment to prevent the escalation from social to dependent drinking. More research is needed to confirm age-independent neural correlates of years of alcohol use.

Sex differences in the interacting roles of impulsivity and positive alcohol expectancy in problem drinking: A structural brain imaging study

“…In our previous fMRI study of social drinkers, higher AUDIT score was correlated with impaired inhibition and diminished responses in the cerebellum, thalamus, frontal and parietal regions, independent of years of alcohol use (Hu et al, 2016). Many other studies specifically support a role of the thalamus in impulsivity related symptomatology in neuropsychiatric illnesses including ADHD and addiction (Bailey and Joyce, 2015, Fassbender et al, 2015, Hu et al, 2015, Hu et al, 2016, Joseph et al, 2015, Kose et al, 2015, Li et al, 2010, Zhang et al, 2016). In particular, changes in thalamic GMVs have been noted in various clinical conditions that implicate impulsivity.…”

Behavioral and Brain Activity Indices of Cognitive Control Deficits in Binge Drinkers

“…These measures are predictive of clinical outcomes such as the duration of abstinence after treatment [ 30 ]. Results of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using executive tasks are less consistent with some studies showing decreased [ 31 , 32 , 33 ], and others reporting increased activation in participants with AUD compared with controls [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Activation increase in AUD participants is commonly observed in the absence of executive task performance deficits suggesting that compensatory mechanisms are engaged to maintain normative behavioral performance especially on tasks imposing higher cognitive demands.…”

Structural and functional cerebral bases of diminished inhibitory control during healthy aging

“…We contrasted successful stop and go trials, in that this contrast captures the saliency process evoked by the stop signal that is necessary to elicit the inhibitory process (Cai et al, 2016;Duann et al, 2009;Hu, Zhang, Chao, Krystal, & Li, 2016). Two SST studies reported age-related increases in activations in the motor and frontal regions when inhibitory control was examined by contrasting successful and unsuccessful stop trials (Bloemendaal et al, 2016;Kleerekooper et al, 2016).…”