Functional Connectivity and Quantitative EEG in Women with Alcohol Use Disorders: A Resting-State Study

Abstract

This study was aimed at exploring the electroencephalographic features associated with alcohol use disorders (AUD) during a resting-state condition, by using quantitative EEG and Functional Connectivity analyses. In addition, we explored whether EEG functional connectivity is associated with trait impulsivity. Absolute and relative powers and Synchronization Likelihood (SL) as a measure of functional connectivity were analyzed in 15 AUD women and fifteen controls matched in age, gender and education. Correlation analysis between self-report impulsivity as measured by the Barratt impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and SL values of AUD patients were performed. Our results showed increased absolute and relative beta power in AUD patients compared to matched controls, and reduced functional connectivity in AUD patients predominantly in the beta and alpha bands. Impaired connectivity was distributed at fronto-central and occipito-parietal regions in the alpha band, and over the entire scalp in the beta band. We also found that impaired functional connectivity particularly in alpha band at fronto-central areas was negative correlated with non-planning dimension of impulsivity. These findings suggest that functional brain abnormalities are present in AUD patients and a disruption of resting-state EEG functional connectivity is associated with psychopathological traits of addictive behavior.

Random Forest Classification of Alcohol Use Disorder Using EEG Source Functional Connectivity, Neuropsychological Functioning, and Impulsivity Measures

“…These findings add support to the view that alcoholism can be considered as a disinhibitory disorder [109][110][111]. Although previous studies have separately shown that AUD was associated with altered rs-fMRI FC [3,161], poor neuropsychological performance [64,150], and heightened impulsivity [65,120], no previous FC studies have examined all three domains together as done in the current study. However, similar to the current study, we also conducted an rs-fMRI FC study, and identified distinct features from all three domains that are involved in the classification of AUD from CTL subjects [54].…”

“…Importantly, impulsivity was found to be associated with reduced P3 amplitude in AUD [120] and other externalizing disorders [157][158][159]. Further, recent studies have found an association of impulsivity with resting state measures of EEG power [160], EEG-based FC [161], and fMRI-based FC [3], suggesting that impulsivity in AUD may underlie specific brain networks.…”

Heavy alcohol use in adolescence is associated with altered cortical activity: a combined TMS–EEG study

“…Alcohol‐associated impairments in functional connectivity were found in a recent resting‐state EEG study on women with alcohol use disorder (Herrera‐Diaz et al ). In another EEG study, acute alcohol use increased large‐scale connectivity in the resting‐state network, which was suggested to be linked to increased GABA transmission (Lithari et al ).…”

Age-Related Differences in Reorganization of Functional Connectivity for a Dual Task with Increasing Postural Destabilization

“…To date, SL has most commonly been used to characterize multiple synchronized neural sources in the brain (Stam and van Dijk, 2002) using low-density (Smit et al, 2012; Herrera-Díaz et al, 2016) or high-density EEG (Polanía et al, 2011). The major methodological advantage of using SL is that it can sensibly detect slight and intricate variations in the coupling strength (Koenis et al, 2013), resolving rapid synchronization patterns in the non-stationary ERP profile at a short time scale (Stam and van Dijk, 2002; Betzel et al, 2012).…”