fMRI Investigations of Cognition in Alcoholics

酗酒者认知功能磁共振成像研究

• 批准号: 8316430
• 负责人: JOHN E DESMOND
• 金额: $ 58.15万
• 依托单位: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8316430
• 关键词: Alcoholism; Alcohols; Blood; Blood Vessels; Blood Volume; Blood flow; Brain; Cerebellum; Chronic; Cognition; Cognitive; Dissociation; Event; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Goals; Human; Information Retrieval; Investigation; Laboratories; Left; Light; Maintenance; Measures; Metabolic; Modeling; Nature; Pattern; Performance; Phase; Population; Process; Relative (related person); Research; Retrieval; Scanning; Sensory; Short-Term Memory; Signal Transduction; Staging; Stimulus; System; Time; alcohol effect; cerebral atrophy; chronic alcohol ingestion; cognitive function; design; frontal lobe; hemodynamics; imaging modality; motor control; neocortical; neuroimaging; neuropsychological; non-alcoholic; phonology; problem drinker; public health relevance; rehearsal; relating to nervous system; research study; response; volunteer; Alcoholism; Alcohols; Blood; Blood Vessels; Blood Volume; Blood flow; Brain; Cerebellum; Chronic; Cognition; Cognitive; Dissociation; Event; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Goals; Human; Information Retrieval; Investigation; Laboratories; Left; Light; Maintenance; Measures; Metabolic; Modeling; Nature; Pattern; Performance; Phase; Population; Process; Relative (related person); Research; Retrieval; Scanning; Sensory; Short-Term Memory; Signal Transduction; Staging; Stimulus; System; Time; alcohol effect; cerebral atrophy; chronic alcohol ingestion; cognitive function; design; frontal lobe; hemodynamics; imaging modality; motor control; neocortical; neuroimaging; neuropsychological; non-alcoholic; phonology; problem drinker; public health relevance; rehearsal; relating to nervous system; research study; response; volunteer

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this project is to better understand the changes in cerebro-cerebellar brain function that occur after chronic alcoholism. Using verbal and spatial working memory as model paradigms for investigating cognitive- related cerebro-cerebellar function, our preliminary investigations have suggested that alcoholism can produce either decreases in activation or increases that may be compensatory in nature. We propose to further investigate alcohol-related changes in activation using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods designed to shed more light on the nature of alcohol-induced neuropsychological deficits. Our working memory paradigm is comprised of 3 distinct task phases of encoding, maintenance, and retrieval of information. It has not been determined whether changes in brain activation observed thus far in alcoholics are derived from one or more of the cognitive demands occurring during these task phases. Specifically, differences in activation we have observed could be due to differences in the ability to acquire sensory input and encode verbal information (encoding), differences in rehearsal of information (maintenance), differences in the executive utilization of the maintained information (retrieval), or a combination of these three. We will use event-related fMRI to examine phase specific differences caused by alcoholism, and we will introduce phase- specific challenges to further examine process-specific changes in regional cerebro-cerebellar activation that differ between alcoholic and non-alcoholic subjects. We will also investigate possible dissociations of verbal and spatial working memory on alcohol-related changes in cerebro-cerebellar activation. Whereas spatial working memory in alcoholic subjects has revealed decreases in frontal lobe activation, verbal working memory has elicited left frontal and right cerebellar increases in activation. We propose to investigate whether these different patterns reflect differences in tasks across studies, differences in alcoholic populations, or differences in the effect of alcohol on neural substrates underlying verbal and spatial working memory. Finally, scans designed to measure blood flow, blood volume, and blood oxygenation will be used to determine to what extent BOLD signal differences in the populations are influenced by vascular and/or metabolic changes. These investigations will provide a better understanding of how chronic alcoholism changes brain function underlying cognition. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Chronic alcoholism is known to cause structural changes in the brain, but little is known about the effects of alcoholism on brain function underlying cognitive performance. The experiments in this proposal are designed to characterize, using functional MRI and tasks of verbal and spatial working memory, differences between alcoholics and non-alcoholics in brain function underlying these fundamental cognitive processes.

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的目的是更好地了解慢性酒精中毒后发生的脑脑脑功能的变化。我们的初步研究使用言语和空间工作记忆作为研究认知与认知相关的脑脑功能的模型范例，表明酒精中毒可以产生降低的激活或可能是补偿性的增加。我们建议使用与事件相关的功能磁共振成像（fMRI）方法进一步研究与酒精相关的激活变化，旨在更多地阐明酒精引起的神经心理学缺陷的性质。我们的工作记忆范式由3个不同的编码，维护和检索的不同任务阶段组成。尚未确定迄今为止在酗酒者中观察到的大脑激活的变化是否来自这些任务阶段中发生的一种或多种认知需求。具体而言，我们观察到的激活的差异可能是由于获取感觉输入和编码口头信息（编码）的能力差异，信息的排练（维护）差异，维护信息（检索）的执行使用差异或这三个组合的差异。我们将使用与事件相关的fMRI来检查酗酒引起的相位特定差异，并将引入相位特定的挑战，以进一步检查邻近脑脑脑激活的过程特异性变化，这些变化是酒精和非酒精受试者之间差异的差异。我们还将研究言语和空间工作记忆的可能分离，以在酒精相关的脑脑激活中变化。尽管酒精受试者的空间工作记忆显示额叶激活的减少，但口头工作记忆引起了左额叶和右小脑的激活增加。我们建议研究这些不同的模式是否反映了研究跨研究的差异，酒精人群的差异或酒精对言语和空间工作记忆的神经底物的影响差异。最后，旨在测量血流，血容量和血液氧合的扫描将用于确定种群中大胆的信号差异受血管和/或代谢变化的影响。这些调查将更好地了解慢性酒精中毒如何改变认知基础的大脑功能。 公共卫生相关性：已知慢性酒精中毒会导致大脑的结构变化，但对酒精中毒对认知表现的脑功能的影响知之甚少。该提案中的实验旨在使用功能性MRI以及言语和空间工作记忆的任务来表征这些基本认知过程的基础上的酗酒和非酒精功能的差异。