Alcohol consumption and premotor corpus callosum in older adults

Dimitrios Kapogiannis, Jason Kisser, Christos Davatzikos, Luigi Ferrucci, Jeffrey Metter, Susan M. Resnick

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

Heavy alcohol consumption is toxic to the brain, especially to the frontal white matter (WM), but whether lesser amounts of alcohol negatively impact the brain WM is unclear. In this study, we examined the relationship between self-reported alcohol consumption and regional WM and grey matter (GM) volume in fifty-six men and thirty-seven women (70. +. - 7. years) cognitively intact participants of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) with no history of alcohol abuse. We used regional analysis of volumes examined in normalized space (RAVENS) maps methodology for WM and GM segmentation and normalization followed by voxel based morphometry (VBM) implemented in SPM8 to examine the cross-sectional association between alcohol consumption and regional WM (and, separately, GM) volume controlling for age, sex, smoking, blood pressure and dietary thiamine intake. WM VBM revealed that in men, but not in women, higher alcohol consumption was associated with lower volume in premotor frontal corpus callosum. This finding suggests that even moderate amounts of alcohol may be detrimental to corpus callosum and white matter integrity.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)704-710
Number of pages7
JournalEuropean Neuropsychopharmacology
Volume22
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Alcohol
  • Corpus callosum
  • Premotor
  • White matter

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Pharmacology
  • Neurology
  • Clinical Neurology
  • Psychiatry and Mental health
  • Biological Psychiatry
  • Pharmacology (medical)

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