Drinking severity mediates the relationship between hypothalamic connectivity and rule-breaking/intrusive behavior differently in young women and men: an exploratory study

作者：Guangfei Li, Yun Dong, Yu Chen, Bao Li, Shefali Chaudhary, Jinbo Bi, Hao Sun, Chunlan Yang, Youjun Liu, Chiang‐Shan R. Li · 发表于：Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.21037/qims-24-815 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior、Stress Responses and Cortisol、Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies

Background: The hypothalamus is a key hub of the neural circuits of motivated behavior. Alcohol misuse may lead to hypothalamic dysfunction. Here, we investigated how resting-state hypothalamic functional connectivities are altered in association with the severity of drinking and clinical comorbidities and how men and women differ in this association. Methods: We employed the data of the Human Connectome Project. A total of 870 subjects were included in data analyses. The severity of alcohol use was quantified for individual subjects with the first principal component (PC1) identified from principal component analyses of all drinking measures. Rule-breaking and intrusive scores were evaluated with the Achenbach Adult Self-Report Scale. We performed a whole-brain regression of hypothalamic connectivities on drinking PC1 in all subjects and men/women separately and evaluated the results at a corrected threshold. Results: Higher drinking PC1 was associated with greater hypothalamic connectivity with the paracentral lobule (PCL). Hypothalamic PCL connectivity was positively correlated with rule-breaking score in men (r=0.152, P=0.002) but not in women. In women but not men, hypothalamic connectivity with the left temporo-parietal junction (LTPJ) was negatively correlated with drinking PC1 (r=-0.246, P<0.001) and with intrusiveness score (r=-0.127, P=0.006). Mediation analyses showed that drinking PC1 mediated the relationship between hypothalamic PCL connectivity and rule-breakin...