Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Apr:321:111461.
doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2022.111461. Epub 2022 Feb 17.

Resting state functional connectivity in alcohol users and co-users of other substances

Vanessa Morris  1 , Sabrina K Syan  2 , James MacKillop  3 , Michael Amlung  4
Affiliations

Resting state functional connectivity in alcohol users and co-users of other substances

Vanessa Morris et al. Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

Polysubstance use (PSU) is the use of more than one psychoactive substance simultaneously or independently, and occurs in roughly half of individuals who seek treatment for substance use. The current study sought to use resting state functional connectivity (rs-FC) to examine functional connectivity in participants who report using multiple or single substances. Participants were drawn from a larger neuroimaging study. From there, participants were placed into one of three groups based on their frequency of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and illicit drug use. The final sample consisted of 82 participants. We observed three clusters that differed significantly between the three groups; one within the salience network and two within the temporal network. Tri+ users were found to have a lesser amount of rs-FC in these regions (compared to the other two groups) and dual users were found to have a greater amount of rs-FC within these regions. Findings indicate that use of three or more substances may significantly impact rs-FC within the salience and temporal networks, and that those who use alcohol+cannabis have significantly greater rs-FC than those who use alcohol+tobacco. Research is needed to examine larger samples of PSU for comparisons across specific substance combinations.

Keywords: Addiction; Cluster; Network; Neuroimaging; Neuroscience; Polysubstance.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

J.M is a principal in BEAM Diagnostics Inc, but no BEAM products were used in this study. No other authors have conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Axial Views of the Salience and Temporal Networks Examined in the Current Study
Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Axial Views of the Salience and Temporal Networks Examined in the Current Study
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Clusters Exhibiting Significant Group Differences
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Heat Map of Correlations Between Significant Clusters and Substance Use Scales Note: OCC = Occipital cotrex; OFC = Orbitofrontal Cortex; AUDIT = Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test total score; CUDIT = Cannabis Use Disorder Identification Test total score; FTND = Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence total score, DUDIT = Drug Use Disorder Identification Test total score; **Correlations > ± .29 are significant at p<.01.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Abé C, Mon A, Hoefer ME, Durazzo TC, Pennington DL, Schmidt TP, & Meyerhoff DJ (2013). Metabolic abnormalities in lobar and subcortical brain regions of abstinent polysubstance users: Magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 48(5), 543–551. 10.1093/alcalc/agt056 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adamson SJ, Kay-Lambkin FJ, Baker AL, Lewin TJ, Thornton L, Kelly BJ, & Sellman JD (2010). An improved brief measure of cannabis misuse: the Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test-Revised (CUDIT-R). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 110(1–2), 137–143. 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.02.017 - DOI - PubMed
    1. American Psychiatric Association. (2015). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5: Research Version.American Psychiatric Association Publishing.
    1. Berman A, Bergman H, Palmstierna T, & Schlyter F (2005). Evaluation of the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) in Criminal Justice and Detoxification Settings and in a Swedish Population Sample. European Addiction Research, 11(1), 22–31. - PubMed
    1. Bhalla IP, Stefanovics EA, & Rosenheck RA (2017). Clinical Epidemiology of Single Versus Multiple Substance Use Disorders. Medical Care, 55(9), S24–S32. 10.1097/MLR.0000000000000731 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types