Gender Dimorphism of Brain Reward System Volumes in Alcoholism

The brain's reward network has been reported to be smaller in alcoholic men compared to nonalcoholic men, but little is known about the volumes of reward regions in alcoholic women. Morphometric analyses were performed on magnetic resonance brain scans of 60 long-term chronic alcoholics (ALC; 30 men) and 60 nonalcoholic controls (NC; 29 men). We derived volumes of total brain, and cortical and subcortical reward-related structures including the dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC), orbitofrontal, and cingulate cortices, and the temporal pole, insula, amygdala, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens septi (NAc), and ventral diencephalon (VDC).

Source: Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging - March 4, 2017 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Kayle S. Sawyer, Marlene Oscar-Berman, Olivier J. Barthelemy, George M. Papadimitriou, Gordon J. Harris, Nikos Makris Source Type: research