Purpose

Alcohol may disrupt hemodynamic response and local nerve activity which impact brain function, but to date the mechanism is not fully clear. Utilizing whole brain 3D pseudo continuous arterial spin labeling (PCASL), we aimed to preliminary explore the hemodynamic impact of taking in alcohol by evaluating cerebral blood flow (CBF) change of healthy volunteers. This will helps us on a better understanding on the activities of brain function after drinking and mechanisms of the influences from alcohol on the corresponding brain areas.

Method

This study was approved by the institutional review board, and informed consents were obtained from all subjects. In our study, 29 healthy volunteers (23 male,6 female, mean age of 25.03±2.67 years) consumed moderate doses of alcohol (male 0.6 g/kg, female 0.55 g/kg). MRI examinations were performed before and 30min after alcohol consumption on a GE Discovery MR750 Plus 3.0T superconducting magnetic resonance（GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA） which was equipped with a 8-channel phased-array head coil. Conventional MRI sequences included General Axial T2WI and 3D PCASL using 3D spiral fast spin echo pulse sequence were acquired during scan. PCASL detailed parameters are: TR=4632ms, TE=10.5ms, NEX=3, 4mm thickness, 0mm interlayer spacing, 8 arms with 512 sampling points, FOV =24cm×24cm, 36 axial slices, Post Labeling Delay 1525ms. CBF maps are then obtained using functool post processing software on a GE AW workstation. SPM8 was applied in data processing for comparison of cerebral functioning before and after alcohol consumption. Pairing T-test was adopted to examine the differences of CBF.

Results

Compared data of 30min after drinking with before-drinking: the CBF In brainstem, bilateral hippocampus, left frontal lobe, bilateral thalamus, corpus callosum, and anterior cingulate cortex were significantly increased in table 1, and bilateral cerebellum, bilateral occipital lobe, cuneus and bilateral temporal gyrus were significantly decreased in table 2. Figure 1 demonstrates the differences of CBF in the brain before after drinking(P<0.001, Alphasim corrected).

Conclusion and discussion

The source of the ASL signal is related to neurophysiology^[1], which can provide information related to brain activity, and cerebral blood flow (CBF) is a marker of neurological activity^[2]. The difference of blood perfusion information was found in the brain,which indicated that there were potential local brain area abnormal functional activity exists after drinking. These changes may be associated with metabolic, hormonal dynamics and hemodynamic autoregulation, which may have interaction effects or influenced by other neural mechanisms .

Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Prof. Jun Chen, my tutor,who gave me considerable help by means of suggestion, comments and criticism. Without his pushing me ahead, the completion of this thesis would be impossible. In addition, I deeply appreciate the contribution to this thesis made in various ways by my colleagues Shihao Wu,Qizhong Xu,Peifu Li and Yawen Ao, who have generously offered their consistent support and encouragement.

References

[1] Detre J A, Wang J. Technical aspects and utility of fMRI using BOLD and ASL[J]. Clin Neurophysiol,2002,113(5):621-634.[2] Rao H, Wang J, Tang K, et al. Imaging brain activity during natural vision using CASL perfusion fMRI[J]. Hum Brain Mapp,2007,28(7):593-601.