Resting State Functional Connectivity Patterns Associate with Alcohol Use Disorder Characteristics: Insights from the Triple Network Model
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
Apr 8, 2025
Abstract
Prolonged alcohol use results in neuroadaptations that mark more severe and
treatment-resistant alcohol use. The goal of this study was to identify
functional connectivity brain patterns underlying Alcohol Use Disorder
(AUD)-related characteristics in fifty-five adults (31 female) who endorsed
heavy alcohol use. We hypothesized that resting-state functional connectivity
(rsFC) of the Salience (SN), Frontoparietal (FPN), and Default Mode (DMN)
networks would reflect self reported recent and lifetime alcohol use,
laboratory-based alcohol seeking, urgency, and sociodemographic characteristics
related to AUD. To test our hypothesis, we combined the triple network model
(TNM) of psychopathology with a multivariate data-driven approach, regularized
partial least squares (rPLS), to unfold concurrent functional connectivity (FC)
patterns and their association with AUD characteristics. We observed three
concurrent associations of interest: i) drinking and age-related cross
communication between the SN and both the FPN and DMN; ii) family history
density of AUD and urgency anticorrelations between the SN and FPN; and iii)
alcohol seeking and sex-associated SN and DMN interactions. These findings
demonstrate the utility of combining theory- and data-driven approaches to
uncover associations between resting-state functional substrates and
AUD-related characteristics that could aid in the identification, development,
and testing of novel treatment targets across preclinical and clinical models.
