ArticleBiological psychiatry2026
Greater Neuroimmune System Deficit in Women Than Men With Alcohol Use Disorder.
Article in Biological psychiatry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Variations in alcohol craving and negative mood during a clinical trial of ibudilast for alcohol use disorder.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2025Trial
- Higher drinking frequency corresponds to lower synaptic density in people with alcohol use disorder.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2026Observational
- Women and alcohol: A call to action.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2026Article
- Sex differences in the neuroimmune response following heavy, binge-like alcohol exposure in adolescent rats.Journal of neuroimmunology · 2025Article
- Binge alcohol and the neuroendocrinology of the aging female.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundWomen who drink are more vulnerable than men to many of the consequences of alcohol use, including alcohol-related cancers, cardiovascular disease, liver cirrhosis, and immune system dysfunction. Acute alcohol triggers neuroimmune cells including microglia-the brain's resident immune cells. Excessive activation can contribute to neuronal dysfunction and alcohol-induced neurodegeneration. Women have a greater vulnerability to alcohol-induced neurodegeneration; thus, there is a critical need to examine sex differences in neuroimmune mechanisms that underlie alcohol use disorder (AUD) to inform novel treatment strategies for women.
methodsA total of 41 individuals with mild-to-moderate AUD (20 women) and 37 sex-matched control individuals completed a positron emission tomography brain imaging scan with the radiotracer [
resultsPeople with versus without AUD had significantly lower TSPO availability in all brain regions. Women (but not men) with AUD had significantly lower TSPO availability (average of 21%) in all 4 regions (p = .022) compared with sex-matched control participants. Women with versus without AUD performed worse on executive function (p = .020). Lower hippocampal (p = .059) and cerebellar (p = .097) TSPO availability were trendingly related to more errors on the executive function task in women with AUD.
conclusionsThis study showed lower TSPO levels in people with mild-to-moderate AUD versus control participants and demonstrated that the deficit was significantly greater in women than men with AUD. This suggests that women with AUD may particularly benefit from novel neuroimmune-modulating treatments for AUD.
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Registered trials
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