ArticleAddiction (Abingdon, England)2024
Brain structural covariance network features are robust markers of early heavy alcohol use.
Article in Addiction (Abingdon, England), 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Big data and psychiatry: advances, constraints and future directions.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2026Article
- Structural connectome architecture and biological vulnerability shape cortical atrophy in cocaine use disorder.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Classification of Adolescent Drinking via Behavioral, Biological, and Environmental Features: A Machine Learning Approach with Bias Control.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Brain network features predating early alcohol initiation in adolescence.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Structural Covariance Network Properties Predictive of Early Adolescent Alcohol Initiation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Abnormal topological structure of structural covariance networks based on fractal dimension in noise induced hearing loss.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Disrupted gray matter connectome in vestibular migraine: a combined machine learning and individual-level morphological brain network analysis.The journal of headache and pain · 2024Article
- Altered individual gray matter structural covariance networks in early abstinence patients with alcohol dependence.Brain imaging and behavior · 2024Article
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22 authors.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsRecently, we demonstrated that a distinct pattern of structural covariance networks (SCN) from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-derived measurements of brain cortical thickness characterized young adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and predicted current and future problematic drinking in adolescents relative to controls. Here, we establish the robustness and value of SCN for identifying heavy alcohol users in three additional independent studies. DESIGN AND
settingCross-sectional and longitudinal studies using data from the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition and Genetics (PING) study (n = 400, age range = 14-22 years), the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) (n = 272, age range = 17-22 years) and the Human Connectome Project (HCP) (n = 375, age range = 22-37 years). CASES: Cases were defined based on heavy alcohol use patterns or former alcohol use disorder (AUD) diagnoses: 50, 68 and 61 cases were identified. Controls had none or low alcohol use or absence of AUD: 350, 204 and 314 controls were selected. MEASUREMENTS: Graph theory metrics of segregation and integration were used to summarize SCN.
findingsMirroring our prior findings, and across the three data sets, cases had a lower clustering coefficient [area under the curve (AUC) = -0.029, P = 0.002], lower modularity (AUC = -0.14, P = 0.004), lower average shortest path length (AUC = -0.078, P = 0.017) and higher global efficiency (AUC = 0.007, P = 0.010). Local efficiency differences were marginal (AUC = -0.017, P = 0.052). That is, cases exhibited lower network segregation and higher integration, suggesting that adjacent nodes (i.e. brain regions) were less similar in thickness whereas spatially distant nodes were more similar.
conclusionStructural covariance network (SCN) differences in the brain appear to constitute an early marker of heavy alcohol use in three new data sets and, more generally, demonstrate the utility of SCN-derived metrics to detect brain-related psychopathology.
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