Altered Structural Connectivity and Functional Brain Dynamics in Individuals With Heavy Alcohol Use Elucidated via Network Control Theory.

Background: Heavy alcohol use and its associated conditions, such as alcohol use disorder, impact millions of individuals worldwide. While our understanding of the neurobiological correlates of alcohol use has evolved substantially, we still lack models that incorporate whole-brain neuroanatomical, functional, and pharmacological information under one framework.

Methods: Here, we utilized diffusion and functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate alterations to brain dynamics in 130 individuals with a high amount of current alcohol use. We compared these alcohol-using individuals to 308 individuals with minimal use of any substances.

Results: We found that individuals with heavy alcohol use had less dynamic and complex brain activity, and through leveraging network control theory, had increased control energy to complete transitions between activation states. Furthermore, using separately acquired positron emission tomography data, we deployed an in silico evaluation demonstrating that decreased D₂ receptor levels, as found previously in individuals with alcohol use disorder, may relate to our observed findings.

Conclusions: This work demonstrates that whole-brain, multimodal imaging information can be combined under a network control framework to identify and evaluate neurobiological correlates and mechanisms of heavy alcohol use.