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Reduced structural connectivity of the amygdala is associated with childhood trauma in adult patients with alcohol use disorder.

ABSTRACT: Childhood trauma (CT) is frequent in patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and may impact on adult drinking behaviour and treatment outcome. This study aimed to investigate the structural correlates of CT in AUD, focusing on the amygdala, which plays a crucial role in the neurobiology of trauma. We hypothesized reduced amygdala volume and reduced structural connectivity as quantified by fractional anisotropy (FA) and by number of streamlines in those AUD patients with a history of moderate to severe CT (AUD-CT). T1-weighted MP2RAGE and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) 3-Tesla MRI-scans were acquired in 41 recently abstinent patients with AUD. We compared bilateral amygdala volume and structural connectivity (FA and number of streamlines) of pathways emanating from the amygdala between AUD-CT (n = 20) and AUD without CT (AUD-NT, n = 21) using a mixed model multivariate analysis of variance (MANCOVA) controlling for age and gender. AUD-CT displayed reduced FA and reduced number of streamlines of amygdalar tracts. There were no differences regarding amygdala volume. The severity of physical abuse, a subscale of the childhood trauma questionnaire, was negatively correlated with FA and with number of streamlines. AUD-CT and AUD-NT differ regarding structural connectivity of pathways projecting to and from the amygdala, but not regarding amygdala volume. Those alterations of structural connectivity in AUD-CT may represent a distinguishable neurobiological subtype of AUD, which might be associated with the complex clinical picture and poorer outcome that patients with CT and AUD often present.

SUBMITTER: Soravia LM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9286842 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Altered functional connectivity (FC) between the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and amygdala is widely implicated as a neural mechanism explaining risk for psychopathology among those exposed to early life trauma. Nonetheless, contemporary neuroimaging research has shifted toward large-scale network models of brain function, and it is not clear how this common bi-nodal finding fits into larger-scale network models. Here, using dynamic functional connectivity (DFC) approaches combined with large-scale network analyses, the larger role of bi-nodal FC between mPFC and amygdala among a sample of adolescent girls is investigated. The sample was comprised of 30 healthy control girls and 26 girls exposed to either physical or sexual assault who underwent a resting-state scan during 3T MRI. DFC using a sliding window approach was used to create weighted, undirected, graphs from the resting-state data following parcellation with a 215 regions-of-interest (ROI) atlas. Using a priori ROI, the predicted finding of lessor FC between mPFC and amygdala as a function of early life trauma was replicated in this sample. By contrast, early life trauma was associated with greater large-scale network modularity. Using a dynamic FC approach, it is also demonstrated that within-subject variability in this bi-nodal FC closely tracks within-subject fluctuations in large-scale network patterns, including connectivity between a limbic and default mode network (in which the amygdala and mPFC nodes belong, respectively) as well as overall modular organization. These results suggest that bi-nodal FC, such as amygdala-mPFC FC, may generally reflect larger-scale network patterns. Future research is necessary to understand whether these associations between nodal FC and large-scale network organization better reflect top-down processes (larger-scale network organization drives bi-nodal FC) or bottom-up processes (bi-nodal FC drives larger-scale network organization) and the related impact of early life trauma.

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Reduced structural connectivity of the amygdala is associated with childhood trauma in adult patients with alcohol use disorder.

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