PNAs: the relationship between alcohol addiction and brain function

January 17, 2020 / Biovalley BIOON / -- researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of medicine use advanced technology to conduct whole brain imaging with single cell resolution In the alcohol dependent mouse model, the functional structure of the brain of rodents has been substantially remolded Compared with the rats who did not drink or were not used to drinking, the rats in the experimental group who lost alcohol intake showed higher coordination of brain activity and reduced modularity The findings, published in PNAS on January 14, 2020, also found several previously unsuspected brain regions related to alcohol consumption, providing new research objectives for better understanding and treatment of human alcohol dependence (image source: www Pixabay Com) "the neuroscience of addiction has made great progress, but it always focuses on the limited brain circuits and neurotransmitters, mainly dopaminergic neurons, amygdala and prefrontal cortex," senior author Dr Olivier George "The team has been debating for years whether 'their' brain circuits are the key to addiction Our results confirm the importance of these areas, but the fact that we see such a huge reconstruction of functional brain structure is really shocking " These findings further challenge the idea that addiction is merely a consequence of mental state or lifestyle "The whole brain reconstruction of the functional structure observed here is not 'normal' No such phenomenon was observed in young animals, no such phenomenon was observed in recreational drinking animals, only in animals with a history of alcohol dependence and a large number of drinking, and the decline of brain modularity was observed in many brain diseases Including Alzheimer's disease, brain injury and seizures " The reduced modularity may interfere with "normal neuronal activity and information processing, and can lead to cognitive impairment, emotional distress, and intense craving observed in mice during abstinence," the authors said George said it was unclear whether the reduced modularity was permanent "So far, we only know that abstinence lasts for at least a week We haven't tested longer abstinence, but that's one of our goals " Imaging methods are not yet available for larger, more complex human brains "I don't think it's possible to do this in humans right now, but when I started this study 15 years ago, the technology didn't exist at all, and I never imagined it would happen, so who knows what the future will bring," George said In mice, alcool dependency results in brain wide remoting of functional architecture, Adam kimbrough, Daniel J Lurie, Andres collazo, Max kreifeldt, harpreet Sidhu, giovana Camila Macedo, mark D'Esposito, Candice content, Olivier George Brain-wide functional architecture remodeling by alcohol dependence and abstinence Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 2020; 201909915 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1909915117