The purpose of the study was to find the reduction of brain reward system and specially to identify decrease of right hemisphere. This study investigated regional gray matter(GM) in chronic alcoholic patients, focusing primarily on the reward system, ...
The purpose of the study was to find the reduction of brain reward system and specially to identify decrease of right hemisphere. This study investigated regional gray matter(GM) in chronic alcoholic patients, focusing primarily on the reward system, including principal components of the mesocorticolimbic reward circuit include amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens(ventral striatum), and ventral diencephalon(including basal forebrain, ventral tegmentum, and hypothalamus), as well as cortical areas with modulating and oversight functions, such as dorsolateral-prefrontal, orbitofrontal, and cingulate cortices, parahippocampal gyri, and the insula.
Morphometric analysis was performed on magnetic resonance brain scans in 16 abstinent long-term chronic alcoholic men and 16 healthy control men, group-matched on age and education. We derived volumes of total brain and volumes of cortical and subcortical reward-related structures including the dorsolateral-prefrontal, orbitofrontal, cingulate cortices, and the insula, as well as the amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens septi (NAc), and ventral diencephalon.
Morphometric analyses of reward-related regions revealed decreased total reward-network volume in alcoholic subjects. Volume reduction was most pronounced in right NAc, right parahippocampus, right dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex(BA 8, 9), right medial orbitofrontal cortex. In all participants, right reward system volumes decreased with severity of alcohol addiction.
The observation of decreased reward-network volume suggests that alcoholism is associated with alterations in this neural reward system. These structural reward system deficits and their correlation with alcohol addiction’s severity scores elucidate underlying structural-functional relationships between alcoholism and emotional and cognitive processes.
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