Alteration of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in patients with abstinence of methamphetamine-dependent using functional MRI / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the difference of brain activity intensity between abstinent methamphetamine-dependent (AMD) patients and healthy controls using amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF).Methods:From April 2016 to March 2017, 29 male AMD patients from Pingtang compulsory rehabilitation center in Changsha City, Hunan Province and 31 healthy male controls were prospectively recruited. The general conditions of all AMD patients, including age of first use of MA, months of MA use, monthly MA consumption, MA use frequency of the last year and the last month, current months of drug withdrawal, times of drug withdrawal, self-assessment score of drug craving when taking drugs, smoking history (whether smoking and smoking years), drinking history (whether drinking and drinking years). The rest functional MRI data were collected. DPABI software package was used to preprocess the data and calculate ALFF value of each voxel in the whole brain of the subjects of two groups. Two samples t-test and alphasim multiple comparison correction were used. Nuclei with voxel level P<0.01 and voxel number>71 were considered as regions with significant differences between two groups, corresponding to corrected P<0.05. ALFF mean value was extracted for each region with significant differences. Taking smoking and drinking as covariates, the correlations between the mean ALFF values of regions with significant differences and MA use and abstinence were analyzed. Results:Compared with the healthy control group, it was found in the AMD group that ALFF value of left middle frontal gyrus was significantly lower ( t=-4.707), and that of right inferior frontal gyrus was significantly higher ( t=4.445). The results of correlation analysis showed that the ALFF value of right inferior frontal gyrus was negatively correlated with the frequency of MA use and the MA amounts used in the last month ( r=-0.396, P=0.034; r=-0.429, P=0.020). Conclusions:Abnormal brain activity intensity is found in AMD patients compared with healthy controls, with abnormalities mainly found in the prefrontal lobe, which is involved in cognitive, executive and emotion functions. The more MA is used, the more damages or alterations may exist in these regions.