Increased ventral striatal volume in college-aged binge drinkers

Binge drinking is a serious public health issue associated with cognitive, physiological, and anatomical differences from healthy individuals. No studies, however, have reported subcortical grey matter differences in this population. To address this, we compared the grey matter volumes of college-ag...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-09, Vol.8 (9), p.e74164
Main Authors: Howell, Nicholas A, Worbe, Yulia, Lange, Iris, Tait, Roger, Irvine, Michael, Banca, Paula, Harrison, Neil A, Bullmore, Edward T, Hutchison, William D, Voon, Valerie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Alcohol use
Alcohols
Amygdala
Basal Ganglia - pathology
Binge drinking
Binge Drinking - pathology
Biomedical research
Brain research
Case-Control Studies
Cocaine
Cognitive ability
Complications
Data processing
Disorders
Dopamine
Drinking behavior
Ethanol
Health care networks
Hippocampus
Hospitals
Humans
Medical imaging
Methamphetamine
Morphology
Morphometry
Neostriatum
Neurosciences
Psychiatry
Public health
Risk factors
Substantia grisea
Teenagers
Young Adult
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Summary:Binge drinking is a serious public health issue associated with cognitive, physiological, and anatomical differences from healthy individuals. No studies, however, have reported subcortical grey matter differences in this population. To address this, we compared the grey matter volumes of college-age binge drinkers and healthy controls, focusing on the ventral striatum, hippocampus and amygdala. T1-weighted images of 19 binge drinkers and 19 healthy volunteers were analyzed using voxel-based morphometry. Structural data were also covaried with Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores. Cluster-extent threshold and small volume corrections were both used to analyze imaging data. Binge drinkers had significantly larger ventral striatal grey matter volumes compared to controls. There were no between group differences in hippocampal or amygdalar volume. Ventral striatal, amygdalar, and hippocampal volumes were also negatively related to AUDIT scores across groups. Our findings stand in contrast to the lower ventral striatal volume previously observed in more severe forms of alcohol use disorders, suggesting that college-age binge drinkers may represent a distinct population from those groups. These findings may instead represent early sequelae, compensatory effects of repeated binge and withdrawal, or an endophenotypic risk factor.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0074164