fMRI measurement of brain dysfunction in alcohol-dependent young women

Background: Studies of brain functioning in alcohol-dependent adults have p roduced varied results but generally suggest that alcohol affects brain fun ctioning and that relatively short durations of heavy drinking may adversel y affect women. It remains unclear when in the course of alcohol dependency and at which developmental stage these brain changes emerge. Our neuropsyc hological studies have indicated that drinking-related neurocognitive effec ts occur as early as adolescence (Brown et al., 2000; Tapert & Brown, 1999) . This study seeks to characterize brain regions that subserve the affected neurocognitive functions. Methods: Alcohol-dependent young women (n = 10) were recruited from a longi tudinal study of alcohol- and drug-abusing youth, all of whom met criteria for alcohol dependence. Control participants (n = 10) had no history of alc ohol or drug problems and were comparable with alcohol-dependent participan ts on age (18-25 years), family history of alcohol use disorders, and educa tion. After a minimum of 72 hr of abstinence, functional magnetic resonance imaging, neuropsychological, alcohol/drug involvement, and mood data were collected. Participants performed spatial working memory and vigilance task s during functional magnetic resonance imaging acquisition to probe brain r esponse. Results: Alcohol-dependent women demonstrated significantly less blood oxyg en level-dependent response than controls during the spatial working memory task in the right superior and inferior parietal, right middle frontal, ri ght postcentral, and left superior frontal cortex, after controlling for th e baseline vigilance response. Conclusions: Working memory produces a larger neuronal response in some cor tical regions than vigilance. Alcohol-dependent nomen showed less different ial response to working memory than controls in frontal and parietal region s, especially in the right hemisphere. Heavy, chronic drinking appears to p roduce adverse neural effects that are detectable by functional magnetic re sonance imaging.