Acute effects of alcohol on brain perfusion monitored with arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging in young adults

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

While a number of studies have established that moderate doses of alcohol increase brain perfusion, the time course of such an increase as a function of breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) has not yet been investigated, and studies differ about regional effects. Using arterial spin labeling (ASL) magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated (1) the time course of the perfusion increase during a 15-minute linear increase of BrAC up to 0.6 g/kg followed by a steady exposure of 100 minutes, (2) the regional distribution, (3) a potential gender effect, and (4) the temporal stability of perfusion effects. In 48 young adults who participated in the Dresden longitudinal study on alcohol effects in young adults, we observed (1) a 7% increase of global perfusion as compared with placebo and that perfusion and BrAC are tightly coupled in time, (2) that the increase reaches significance in most regions of the brain, (3) that the effect is stronger in women than in men, and (4) that an acute tolerance effect is not observable on the time scale of 2 hours. Larger studies are needed to investigate the origin and the consequences of the effect, as well as the correlates of inter-subject variations.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)472–479
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism
Volume34
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 84896719006
ORCID /0000-0001-5398-5569/work/161890698
ORCID /0000-0001-5099-0274/work/161891483
ORCID /0000-0001-8870-0041/work/161891680

Keywords