ArticleScience advances2020
Chronic alcohol consumption alters extracellular space geometry and transmitter diffusion in the brain.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 56 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review and meta-analysis on the transcriptomic signatures in alcohol use disorder.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Bad habits-good goals? Meta-analysis and translation of the habit construct to alcoholism.Translational psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Repetitive deep TMS in alcohol dependent patients halts progression of white matter changes in early abstinence.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Trial
- Multiscale Approximations to Understand the Complex Role of Microglia in Alzheimer's Disease.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Review
- Early abstinence in severe alcohol use disorder: MCP-1 decline, choroid plexus shrinkage, and region-specific grey-matter volume changes.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Widespread and prolonged pain may reduce brain clearance capacity only via sleep impairment: Evidence from participants with knee pain.The journal of pain · 2025Article
- Emerging insights into pulmonary hypertension: the potential role of mitochondrial dysfunction and redox homeostasis.Molecular and cellular biochemistry · 2025Review
- The Dopamine System in Mediating Alcohol Effects in Humans.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Synaptic Effects Induced by Alcohol.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Behavioral Neurobiology of Alcohol Addiction: A Decade of Great Challenges, New Hopes, and Hypes.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Alcohol-Induced Changes in Brain Microstructure: Uncovering Novel Pathophysiological Mechanisms of AUD Using Translational DTI in Humans and Rodents.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Identification of neural alterations in patients with Crohn's disease with a novel multiparametric brain MRI-based radiomics model.Insights into imaging · 2024Article
- Article
- Coordination among frequent genetic variants imparts substance use susceptibility and pathogenesis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Alcohol-induced damage to the fimbria/fornix reduces hippocampal-prefrontal cortex connection during early abstinence.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2023Article
- Schrooms against booze: Potential of mycotherapy for the treatment of AUD.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Article
- Alcohol's effects on the mouse brain are modulated by age and sex.Addiction biology · 2022Article
- Mapping microglia and astrocyte activation in vivo using diffusion MRI.Science advances · 2022Article
- Brain Network Allostasis after Chronic Alcohol Drinking Is Characterized by Functional Dedifferentiation and Narrowing.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors at 7 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Already moderate alcohol consumption has detrimental long-term effects on brain function. However, how alcohol produces its potent addictive effects despite being a weak reinforcer is a poorly understood conundrum that likely hampers the development of successful interventions to limit heavy drinking. In this translational study, we demonstrate widespread increased mean diffusivity in the brain gray matter of chronically drinking humans and rats. These alterations appear soon after drinking initiation in rats, persist into early abstinence in both species, and are associated with a robust decrease in extracellular space tortuosity explained by a microglial reaction. Mathematical modeling of the diffusivity changes unveils an increased spatial reach of extrasynaptically released transmitters like dopamine that may contribute to alcohol's progressively enhanced addictive potency.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.