TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Sensitive biomarkers of alcoholism's effect on brain macrostructure: similarities and differences between France and the United States
JO  - Frontiers in human neuroscience
A1  - Le Berre, Anne-Pascale
A1  - Pitel, Anne-Lise
A1  - Chanraud, Sandra
A1  - Beaunieux, Hélène
A1  - Eustache, Francis
A1  - Martinot, Jean-Luc
A1  - Reynaud, Michel
A1  - Martelli, Catherine
A1  - Rohlfing, Torsten
A1  - Pfefferbaum, Adolf
A1  - Sullivan, Edith V.
SP  - e354
EP  - e354
VL  - 9
IS  - 
N2  - Alcohol consumption patterns and recognition of health outcomes related to hazardous drinking vary widely internationally, raising the question whether these national differences are reflected in brain damage observed in alcoholism. This retrospective analysis assessed variability of alcoholism's effects on brain cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and white matter volumes between France and the United States (U.S.). MRI data from two French sites (Caen and Orsay) and a U.S. laboratory (SRI/Stanford University) were acquired on 1.5T imaging systems in 287 controls, 165 uncomplicated alcoholics (ALC), and 26 alcoholics with Korsakoff's Syndrome (KS). All data were analyzed at the U.S. site using atlas-based parcellation. <br><br>RESULTS revealed graded CSF volume enlargement from ALC to KS and white matter volume deficits in KS only. In ALC from France but not the U.S., CSF and white matter volumes correlated with lifetime alcohol consumption, alcoholism duration, and length of sobriety. MRI highlighted CSF volume enlargement in both ALC and KS, serving as a basis for an ex vacuo process to explain correlated gray matter shrinkage. By contrast, MRI provided a sensitive in vivo biomarker of white matter volume shrinkage in KS only, suggesting a specific process sensitive to mechanisms contributing to Wernicke's encephalopathy, the precursor of KS. Identified structural brain abnormalities may provide biomarkers underlying alcoholism's heterogeneity in and among nations and suggest a substrate of gray matter tissue shrinkage. Proposed are hypotheses for national differences in interpreting whether the severity of sequelae observe a graded phenomenon or a continuum from uncomplicated alcoholism to alcoholism complicated by KS.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1662-5161
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00354
ID  - ref1
ER  -