Hyper-brain connectivity in binge drinking college students: a diffusion tensor imaging study

ABSTRACT

The current study used diffusion tensor imaging to examine patterns/degree of brain connectivity in 12 college-aged binge drinking (BD) and 12 moderate drinking individuals. Voxel-level and region-of-interest analyses revealed increased connectivity of the BD brain in the right corona radiata, right external capsule, and both the right and left cingulum. Also, fractional anisotropy and axial diffusivity values of these regions correlated with a number of drinking behaviors of the BD as well as both groups combined. It is hypothesized that increased connectivity in the BD may produce difficulties with regulatory control, contributing to their propensity to binge.

KEYWORDS:

• Connectivity
• binge drinking
• regulatory control
• DTI

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Bryan C. Miller Jr. and Martha H. Miller Foundation to MOB. We also acknowledge the staff of the Texas Tech Neuroimaging Institute for their assistance in the neuroimaging component of the study. The authors have no conflicts of interest and would like to thank Dr Mauricio Valencia-Barrera (Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia, South America) for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bryan C. Miller Jr. and Martha H. Miller Foundation [04-1463].