ArticleBiological psychiatry2021
The Effects of Alcohol and Cannabis Use on the Cortical Thickness of Cognitive Control and Salience Brain Networks in Emerging Adulthood: A Co-twin Control Study.
Article in Biological psychiatry, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Brain Structure and Substance Use: Disentangling Risk, Exposure, and Drug-Specific Effects.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Morphologic characteristics of distal intracranial arteries in relation to structural changes in the brain after chronic alcohol consumption.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Measuring the Associations Between Brain Morphometry and Polygenic Risk Scores for Substance use Disorders in Drug-Naive Adolescents.Behavior genetics · 2025Article
- Effects of short-term exposure to moderate amounts of alcohol on brain volume.Neuropsychopharmacology reports · 2025Article
- Neuroanatomical Variability and Substance Use Initiation in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Alterations of gray matter asymmetry in internet gaming disorder.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Association between adolescent alcohol use and cognitive function in young adulthood: A co-twin comparison study.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2024Article
- Functional Networks of Reward and Punishment Processing and Their Molecular Profiles Predicting the Severity of Young Adult Drinking.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Effects of current alcohol use on brain volume among older adults in the Gothenburg H70 Birth Cohort study 2014-16.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2024Article
- Alcohol use and grey matter structure: Disentangling predispositional and causal contributions in human studies.Addiction biology · 2023Review
- Altered brain structural and functional connectivity in cannabis users.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- The Genetically Informed Neurobiology of Addiction (GINA) model.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2023Review
- Diminished Structural Brain Integrity in Long-term Cannabis Users Reflects a History of Polysubstance Use.Biological psychiatry · 2022Article
- Association Between Brain Structure and Alcohol Use Behaviors in Adults: A Mendelian Randomization and Multiomics Study.JAMA psychiatry · 2022Article
- Intersection between social inequality and emotion regulation on emerging adult cannabis use.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2022Article
- The role of prefrontal cortex in cognitive control and executive function.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Review
- The Effects of Alcohol and Cannabis Co-Use on Neurocognitive Function, Brain Structure, and Brain Function.Current behavioral neuroscience reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundImpairments in inhibitory control and its underlying brain networks (control/salience areas) are associated with substance misuse. Research often assumes a causal substance exposure effect on brain structure. This assumption remains largely untested, and other factors (e.g., familial risk) may confound exposure effects. We leveraged a genetically informative sample of twins aged 24 years and a quasi-experimental co-twin control design to separate alcohol or cannabis exposure effects during emerging adulthood from familial risk on control/salience network cortical thickness.
methodsIn a population-based sample of 436 twins aged 24 years, dimensional measures of alcohol and cannabis use (e.g., frequency, density, quantity, intoxications) across emerging adulthood were assessed. Cortical thickness of control/salience network areas were assessed using magnetic resonance imaging and defined by a fine-grained cortical atlas.
resultsGreater alcohol, but not cannabis, misuse was associated with reduced thickness of prefrontal (e.g., dorso/ventrolateral, right frontal operculum) and frontal medial cortices, as well as temporal lobe, intraparietal sulcus, insula, parietal operculum, precuneus, and parietal medial areas. Effects were predominately (pre)frontal and right lateralized. Co-twin control analyses suggested that the effects likely reflect both the familial predisposition to misuse alcohol and, specifically for lateral prefrontal, frontal/parietal medial, and right frontal operculum, an alcohol exposure effect.
conclusionsThis study provides novel evidence that alcohol-related reductions in cortical thickness of control/salience brain networks likely represent the effects of alcohol exposure and premorbid characteristics of the genetic predisposition to misuse alcohol. The dual effects of these two alcohol-related causal influences have important and complementary implications regarding public health and prevention efforts to curb youth drinking.
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