ArticleAlcoholism, clinical and experimental research2018
Regional Brain Volume Changes in Alcohol-Dependent Individuals During Short-Term and Long-Term Abstinence.
Article in Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Examining alcohol use disorder recovery definitions and demographic reporting in studies of structural brain recovery: an updated systematic review and extension.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Structural and functional brain recovery in individuals with substance use disorders during abstinence: A review of longitudinal neuroimaging studies.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2022Pooled it
- Lower regional grey matter in alcohol use disorders: evidence from a voxel-based meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Risky decision-making in individuals with substance use disorder: A meta-analysis and meta-regression review.Psychopharmacology · 2020Pooled it
- Far infrared intervention on brain changes in patients with alcohol dependence: a pilot longitudinal MRI study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Morphologic characteristics of distal intracranial arteries in relation to structural changes in the brain after chronic alcohol consumption.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effects of intermittent theta burst to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on brain volumes and neurometabolites in people with alcohol use disorder: a preliminary investigation.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neuropsychological Abnormalities Associated with Alcohol Dependence During Long-Term Rehabilitation Treatment of German Inpatients.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Regional cortical thickness recovery with extended abstinence after treatment in those with alcohol use disorder.Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.) · 2024Article
- Regional cortical brain volumes at treatment entry relates to post treatment WHO risk drinking levels in those with alcohol use disorder.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2024Article
- Neural correlates of drinking reduction during a clinical trial of cognitive behavioral therapy for alcohol use disorder.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Article
- Alcohol Use Disorder and Dementia: A Review.Alcohol research : current reviews · 2024Review
- Associations of Dental Health With the Progression of Hippocampal Atrophy in Community-Dwelling Individuals: The Ohasama Study.Neurology · 2023Article
- Alcohol use and grey matter structure: Disentangling predispositional and causal contributions in human studies.Addiction biology · 2023Review
- Detrimental Effects of Alcohol-Induced Inflammation on Brain Health: From Neurogenesis to Neurodegeneration.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2023Review
- Recovery of inhibitory control prefrontal cortex function in inpatients with heroin use disorder: a 15-week longitudinal fMRI study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Neurobiology of Aggression-Review of Recent Findings and Relationship with Alcohol and Trauma.Biology · 2023Review
- Alcohol use disorder: Neuroimaging evidence for accelerated aging of brain morphology and hypothesized contribution to age-related dementia.Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.) · 2023Review
- Caudate gray matter volumes and risk of relapse in Type A alcohol-dependent patients: A 7-year MRI follow-up study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundWidespread brain atrophy in alcohol-dependent individuals (ALC) has been consistently documented in pathological and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies. Longitudinal MRI studies have shown that the regional brain volume losses in ALC are partially reversible during abstinence from alcohol. The goal of this study was to determine volume reductions in cortical and subcortical regions functionally important to substance use behavior and their changes during short-term (1 week to 1 month) and long-term abstinence (1 to 7 months) from alcohol. The regions of interest (ROIs) were as follows: anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), insula, amygdala, and hippocampus.
methodsA total of 85 unique ALC were assessed at 1 week (n = 65), 1 month (n = 82), and 7 months (n = 36) of abstinence. In addition, 17 light/nondrinking healthy controls (CON) were assessed at baseline and follow-up over a 10-month interval. Regional brain volumes were derived from FreeSurfer. Cross-sectional statistical analyses using 1-way analysis of variance or Fisher's exact test were applied to identify group differences. Longitudinal statistical analyses using linear mixed models were applied to identify regional volume increases and nonlinear volume recovery trajectories.
resultsWe demonstrated significant regional volume reductions in ACC, DLPFC, and hippocampus. Older age was associated with smaller DLPFC and OFC, and higher average monthly drinking over 1 year prior to study was associated with smaller OFC. We also demonstrated significant volume increases of all ROIs except amygdala in ALC and significant nonlinear volume recovery trajectories of DLPFC, OFC, and insula.
conclusionsResults showed significant volume reductions in key regions of the executive control, salience, and emotion networks in ALC at entry into treatment and significant volume increases during short-term and long-term abstinence that were nonlinear over the entire abstinence period for the DLPFC, OFC, and insula. This gray matter plasticity during alcohol abstinence may have important neurobiological and neurocognitive implications in ALC, and it may contribute to an individual's ability to maintain abstinence from alcohol at different phases.
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