RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The effect of crack cocaine addiction and age on the microstructure and morphology of the human striatum and thalamus using shape analysis and fast diffusion kurtosis imaging
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 066647
DO 10.1101/066647
A1 Eduardo A Garza-Villarreal
A1 M Mallar Chakravarty
A1 Brian Hansen
A1 Simon F Eskildsen
A1 Gabriel A. Devenyi
A1 Diana Castillo-Padilla
A1 Thania Balducci
A1 Ernesto Reyes-Zamorano
A1 Sune N Jespersen
A1 Pamela Perez-Palacios
A1 Raihaan Patel
A1 Jorge J Gonzalez-Olvera
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/01/066647.abstract
AB The striatum and thalamus are subcortical structures intimately involved in addiction. The morphology and microstructure of these have been studied in murine models of cocaine addiction, showing an effect of drug use, but also chronological age in morphology. Human studies using non-invasive MRI have shown inconsistencies in volume changes, and have also shown an age effect. In this exploratory study, we used MRI-based volumetric and novel shape analysis, as well as a novel fast diffusion kurtosis imaging sequence to study the morphology and microstructure of striatum and thalamus in crack cocaine addiction (CA) compared to matched healthy controls (HC), while investigating the effect of age and years of cocaine consumption. We did not find significant differences in volume and mean kurtosis (MKT) between groups. However, we found significant contraction of nucleus accumbens in CA compared to HC. We also found significant age related changes in volume and MKT of CA in striatum and thalamus that are different to those seen in normal aging. Interestingly, we found different effects and contributions of age and years of consumption in volume, displacement and MKT changes, suggesting each measure provides different but complementing information about morphological brain changes and that not all changes are related to the toxicity or the addiction to the drug. Our findings suggest that the use of finer methods and sequences provide complementing information about morphological and microstructural changes in cocaine addiction, and that brain alterations in cocaine addiction are related cocaine use and age differently.