Brain grey matter deficits in smokers: focus on the cerebellum
Autor: | Simone Kühn, Christina Schilling, Alexander Romanowski, Jürgen Gallinat, Tracy Warbrick, Arian Mobascher, Georg Winterer |
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Rok vydání: | 2011 |
Předmět: |
Adult
Male Cerebellum medicine.medical_specialty Histology Neurology Grey matter computer.software_genre Cognition Voxel medicine Humans Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance Brain Mapping General Neuroscience Smoking Voxel-based morphometry Middle Aged Magnetic Resonance Imaging medicine.anatomical_structure nervous system Cerebral blood flow Female Anatomy Psychology computer Neuroscience |
Zdroj: | Brain Structure and Function. 217:517-522 |
ISSN: | 1863-2661 1863-2653 |
Popis: | Structural cerebral deficiencies in smokers have been well characterized by morphometric investigations focussing on cortical and subcortical structures. Although the role of the cerebellum is increasingly noted in mental and addiction disorders, no reports exist regarding cerebellar alterations in smokers employing a methodology specifically designed to assess the cerebellar morphology. We acquired high-resolution MRI scans from 33 heavy smokers and 22 never-smokers and used a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) approach utilizing the Spatially Unbiased Infratentorial (SUIT) toolbox (Diedrichsen 2006) to provide an optimized and fine-grained exploration of cerebellar structural alterations associated with smoking. Relative to never-smokers, smokers showed significant reductions of grey matter volume in the right cerebellum Crus I. The grey matter volume in Crus I correlated negatively with the amount of nicotine dependence as assessed by means of the Fagerström scale. Since Crus I has been identified as the cognitive division of the cerebellum, the structural deficit may in part mediate cognitive deficits previously reported in smokers. Of note, the dependence-related magnitude of the volume deficit may support the notion that the cerebellum is substantially involved in core mechanisms of drug dependence. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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