Brain, behavioral, affective, and sex correlates of recovery from alcohol use disorders

[Alcohol Abstinence and Accelerated Biological Aging Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults: Evidence From the UK Biobank]

Objective

To investigate the longitudinal association between alcohol abstinence and accelerated biological aging among middle-aged and older adults and to explore the potential effect modifiers influencing the association.

Methods

Utilizing the clinico-biochemical and anthropometric data from the baseline and first repeat survey of the UK Biobank (UKB), we employed the Klemera and Doubal method (KDM) to construct the biological age (BA) and calculate BA acceleration. Change analysis based on multivariate linear regression models was employed to explore the association between changes in alcohol abstinence and changes in BA acceleration. Age, sex, smoking status, tea and coffee consumption, and body mass index were considered as the stratification factors for conducting stratified analysis.

Results

A total of 5 412 participants were included. Short-term alcohol abstinence (β=1.00, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.15-1.86) was found to accelerate biological aging when compared to consistent never drinking, while long-term abstinence (β=-0.20, 95% CI: -1.12-0.71) did not result in a significant acceleration of biological aging. Body mass index may be a potential effect modifier.

Conclusion

Short-term alcohol abstinence was associated with accelerated biological aging, but the effect gradually diminishes over extended periods of abstinence.

A role for circuitry of the cortical amygdala in excessive alcohol drinking, withdrawal, and alcohol use disorder

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) poses a significant public health challenge. Individuals with AUD engage in chronic and excessive alcohol consumption, leading to cycles of intoxication, withdrawal, and craving behaviors. This review explores the involvement of the cortical amygdala (CoA), a cortical brain region that has primarily been examined in relation to olfactory behavior, in the expression of alcohol dependence and excessive alcohol drinking. While extensive research has identified the involvement of numerous brain regions in AUD, the CoA has emerged as a relatively understudied yet promising candidate for future study. The CoA plays a vital role in rewarding and aversive signaling and olfactory-related behaviors and has recently been shown to be involved in alcohol-dependent drinking in mice. The CoA projects directly to brain regions that are critically important for AUD, such as the central amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and basolateral amygdala. These projections may convey key modulatory signaling that drives excessive alcohol drinking in alcohol-dependent subjects. This review summarizes existing knowledge on the structure and connectivity of the CoA and its potential involvement in AUD. Understanding the contribution of this region to excessive drinking behavior could offer novel insights into the etiology of AUD and potential therapeutic targets.

Meeting-makers make meaning: alcoholics anonymous participation and personal meaningfulness

AIMS

The central aim of this study was to determine whether intentional, voluntary alcoholics anonymous (AA) participation showed any independent association with affect, over and above that which has been observed in association with other recovery-related behaviors, such as abstinence, among individuals with a history of alcohol use disorder. Additionally, we sought to determine the nature of the affective changes associated with specific dimensions of AA participation (i.e. meeting  attendance, fellowship  involvement, 12-step  work).

METHODS

Thirty abstinent alcohol use disorder individuals were recruited and evaluated. Multivariate linear regressions were used to examine associations between dimensions of AA participation, measured using the Multidimensional Mutual-Help Assessment Scale and standardized measures of affective experiences, including the Profile of Mood States, Subjective Happiness Scale, and the Twelve Promises Scale.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Increase in AA participation was associated with higher positive affective experiences. These associations were observed independently with AA meeting  attendance and fellowship  involvement, but not 12-step work. This study's findings suggest that greater AA meeting  attendance and fellowship  involvement are correlated with enhancements in the meta-emotional experience of personal meaningfulness. This study extends evidence on AA-related changes by considering affective improvements as a primary clinical outcome, thereby laying the foundation for subsequent, more comprehensive research into the relationship between dimensions of AA participation and recovery-related affective changes.

WOMEN'S USE OF ALCOHOL: NEUROBIOBEHAVIORAL CONCOMITANTS AND CONSEQUENCES

In this narrative review, we draw from historical and contemporary literature to explore the impact of alcohol consumption on brain and behavior among women. We examine three domains: 1) the impact of alcohol use disorder (AUD) on neurobiobehavioral outcomes, 2) its impact on social cognition/emotion processing, and 3) alcohol's acute effects in older women. There is compelling evidence of alcohol-related compromise in neuropsychological function, neural activation, and brain structure. Investigations of social cognition and alcohol effects in older women represent emerging areas of study. Initial analyses suggest that women with AUD show significant deficits in emotion processing, a finding also observed in older women who have consumed a moderate dose of alcohol. Critically, despite the long-recognized need for programmatic interrogation of alcohol's effect in women, studies with sufficient numbers of women for meaningful analysis represent a small proportion of the literature, constraining interpretation and generalization.

Prenatal alcohol exposure enhanced alcohol preference and susceptibility to PTSD in a sex-dependent manner through the synaptic HCN1 channel

BACKGROUND

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) adversely affects the neurobiological and behavioral functions of offspring. Increasing evidence indicates that alcohol-use disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) commonly co-occur. Enhanced function of hyperpolarization-activated gated channel 1 (HCN1) may be involved in the pathogenesis of PTSD. This study aimed to explore the effect of PAE on fear extinction, spontaneous recovery, alcohol preference, and function of HCN1 channels in offspring of both sexes.

METHODS

The PAE model was established with a 20 % (m/V) ethanol solution, and offspring were treated with 0.5, 1, and 2 μg/mL ZD7288 to block the HCN1 channel. Behavioral tests were used to detect the mental state and fear of extinction of the mice. Western blot was used to detect HCN1 expression in the synaptosomes. The BDNF/TrkB-pmTOR pathway was also examined.

RESULTS

ZD7288 administration ameliorated PAE-induced impairment of fear extinction and depression-like behavior. ZD7288 administration also alleviated PAE-induced inhibition of the HCN1 channel in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the BDNF/TrkB-pmTOR pathway in the hippocampus of offspring. In addition, the therapeutic effect of ZD7288 in males was better than that in females.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, these results suggest that PAE enhances alcohol preference and susceptibility to PTSD through synaptic HCN1 channels in the PFC. In addition, ZD7288 may be a promising candidate for preventing alcohol-associated PTSD-like syndrome, particularly in males.

LIMITATIONS

The effects of ZD7288 were only studied in PAE animals and not in healthy animals.

Longitudinal resting-state functional connectivity changes in the insular subdivisions of abstinent individuals with opioid use disorder

The insular cortex plays a critical role in reward circuitry involved with drug craving in substance use disorders. This study aimed to investigate whether opioid use disorder exhibit functional alterations in the insular circuitry after abstinence. Sixty-one opioid use disorder underwent resting-state and 3D-T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and completed craving questionnaires at baseline and after 8 months of abstinence. Changes in resting-state functional connectivity in the insular cortex and their correlations with craving were analyzed. Craving was reduced at follow-up compared with baseline. Compared with that at baseline, there was significantly increased resting-state functional connectivity between the right insular cortex and the superior frontal gyrus/anterior cingulate gyrus (family-wise error corrected) at follow-up. Changes in the functional connectivity of the right dorsal anterior insula/posterior insula with the bilateral superior frontal gyrus were negatively correlated with changes in craving. Our results demonstrated the presence of changes in functional connectivity of the insula in opioid use disorder after protracted abstinence, providing novel evidence of a correlation between craving changes and changes in the neurocircuitry of insular cortex subdivision after abstinence. This study reveals the possibility of neuroplasticity after protracted abstinence, providing insight for future abstinence therapies and rehabilitation procedures for patients with substance use disorders.

Assessing negative affect in mice during abstinence from alcohol drinking: Limitations and future challenges

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is frequently comorbid with mood disorders, and these co-occurring neuropsychiatric disorders contribute to the development and maintenance of alcohol dependence and relapse. In preclinical models, mice chronically exposed to alcohol display anxiety-like and depressive-like behaviors during acute withdrawal and protracted abstinence. However, in total, results from studies using voluntary alcohol-drinking paradigms show variable behavioral outcomes in assays measuring negative affective behaviors. Thus, the main objective of this review is to summarize the literature on the variability of negative affective behaviors in mice after chronic alcohol exposure. We compare the behavioral phenotypes that emerge during abstinence across different exposure models, including models of alcohol and stress interactions. The complicated outcomes from these studies highlight the difficulties of assessing negative affective behaviors in mouse models designed for the study of AUD. We discuss new behavioral assays, comprehensive platforms, and unbiased machine-learning algorithms as promising approaches to better understand the interaction between alcohol and negative affect in mice. New data-driven approaches in the understanding of mouse behavior hold promise for improving the identification of mechanisms, cell subtypes, and neurocircuits that mediate negative affect. In turn, improving our understanding of the neurobehavioral basis of alcohol-associated negative affect will provide a platform to test hypotheses in mouse models that aim to improve the development of more effective strategies for treating individuals with AUD and co-occurring mood disorders.