Hippocampal subfield volumes in abstinent men and women with a history of alcoholism

Aims. Alcohol use disorder (AUD), also often referred to as alcoholism, has been associated with abnormalities in hippocampal volumes, but these relationships have not been fully explored with respect to gender or sub-regional volumes. Methods. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 3 Tesla, we obtained brain images from 67 alcoholic (ALC) participants (31 women) and 63 nonalcoholic control (NC) participants (30 women). We used Freesurfer 6.0 to segment the hippocampus into 12 regions. These were imputed into mixed models to examine the relationships of brain volume with alcoholism group, gender, age, drinking history, and memory. Results. The ALC group had approximately 5% smaller CA1, hippocampal tail, and molecular layer regions than the NC group. Age was negatively associated with volumes for the ALC group in the hippocampal tail, subiculum, and presubiculum. The relationships for delayed and immediate memory with hippocampal tail volume differed for ALC and NC groups: Higher scores were associated with smaller volumes in the ALC group, but larger volumes in the NC group. Length of sobriety was associated with decreasing CA1 volume in women (0.02% per year) and increasing volume size in men (0.03% per year). Conclusions. These findings confirm and extend evidence that alcoholism, gender, and age differentially impact volumes of component parts of the hippocampus. The differential relationships of volume to age and memory could indicate a distinction in the impact of alcoholism on the function of the hippocampal tail. Further, the course of abstinence on CA1 volume differed for men and women.