Sex-related and tissue-specific effects of tobacco smoking on brain atrophy: assessment in a large longitudinal cohort of healthy elderly

Abstract

We investigated the cross-sectional and longitudinal effects of tobacco smoking on brain atrophy in a large cohort of healthy elderly participants (65–80 years). MRI was used for measuring whole brain (WB), gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and hippocampus (HIP) volumes at study entry time (baseline, N = 1451), and the annualized rates of variation of these volumes using a 4-year follow-up MRI in a subpart of the cohort (N = 1111). Effects of smoking status (never, former, or current smoker) at study entry and of lifetime tobacco consumption on these brain phenotypes were studied using sex-stratified AN(C)OVAs, including other health parameters as covariates. At baseline, male current smokers had lower GM, while female current smokers had lower WM. In addition, female former smokers exhibited reduced baseline HIP, the reduction being correlated with lifetime tobacco consumption. Longitudinal analyses demonstrated that current smokers, whether men or women, had larger annualized rates of HIP atrophy, as compared to either non or former smokers, independent of their lifetime consumption of tobacco. There was no effect of smoking on the annualized rate of WM loss. In all cases, measured sizes of these tobacco-smoking effects were of the same order of magnitude than those of age, and larger than effect sizes of any other covariate. These results demonstrate that tobacco smoking is a major factor of brain aging, with sex- and tissue specific effects, notably on the HIP annualized rate of atrophy after the age of 65.

Association of brain age with smoking, alcohol consumption, and genetic variants

“…Our analyses of smoking and RBA indicated that subjects who had smoked on most or all days had a significantly higher RBA compared to subjects who smoked less often. That was consistent with previous studies, which showed significantly greater rate of atrophy in certain regions of the brains of smokers (Durazzo et al, 2012;Duriez et al, 2014;Gallinat et al, 2006). Our data also showed that there was no significant difference of RBA among the subjects who smoked occasionally, only tried once or twice, or abstained from smoking.…”

“…Compared with nonsmokers, smokers have significantly smaller grey matter volume and lower grey matter density in the frontal regions, the occipital lobe, and the temporal lobe. Further, smokers have a significantly greater rate of atrophy in regions that show morphological abnormalities in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (Durazzo et al, 2012;Duriez et al, 2014;Gallinat et al, 2006). It has also been reported that patients with alcohol use disorder show decreased regional grey and white matter volumes in the medial-prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices.…”

Chronic Cigarette Smoking in Healthy Middle-Aged Individuals Is Associated With Decreased Regional Brain N-acetylaspartate and Glutamate Levels

“…The majority of earlier [see (1)] and recent (4–10) studies on smoking-related neurobiological abnormalities employed magnetic resonance (MR)-based morphological measures (i.e., volume and cortical thickness). Overall, the findings indicated smokers demonstrate widespread structural abnormalities that are particularly prominent in anterior frontal lobe subregions (11).…”

Brain‐volume changes in young and middle‐aged smokers: a DARTEL‐based voxel‐based morphometry study

“…While some studies’ subjects were too young and pack‐years was too small . We only found a few previous studies research the effect of tobacco separately for GM and WM . Algorithm of VBM method also has improved as it was proposed.…”