Stability of fMRI striatal response to alcohol cues: A hierarchical linear modeling approach

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 56; no. 1; pp. 61 - 68
• Main Authors: Schacht, Joseph P., Anton, Raymond F., Randall, Patrick K., Li, Xingbao, Henderson, Scott, Myrick, Hugh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.05.2011; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Adult; Alcohol; Alcohol use; Alcoholism - physiopathology; Brain Mapping - methods; Brain research; Corpus Striatum - physiopathology; Cue reactivity; Cues; Dorsal striatum; Female; fMRI; HLM; Humans; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted - methods; Linear Models; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical research; Reward; Studies; Ventral striatum; HLM; fMRI; Alcohol; Ventral striatum; Cue reactivity; Dorsal striatum
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.02.004

In functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of alcohol-dependent individuals, alcohol cues elicit activation of the ventral and dorsal aspects of the striatum (VS and DS), which are believed to underlie aspects of reward learning critical to the initiation and maintenance of alcohol dependence. Cue-elicited striatal activation may represent a biological substrate through which treatment efficacy may be measured. However, to be useful for this purpose, VS or DS activation must first demonstrate stability across time. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), this study tested the stability of cue-elicited activation in anatomically and functionally defined regions of interest in bilateral VS and DS. Nine non-treatment-seeking alcohol-dependent participants twice completed an alcohol cue reactivity task during two fMRI scans separated by 14 days. HLM analyses demonstrated that, across all participants, alcohol cues elicited significant activation in each of the regions of interest. At the group level, these activations attenuated slightly between scans, but session-wise differences were not significant. Within-participants stability was best in the anatomically defined right VS and DS and in a functionally defined region that encompassed right caudate and putamen (intraclass correlation coefficients of .75, .81, and .76, respectively). Thus, within this small sample, alcohol cue-elicited fMRI activation had good reliability in the right striatum, though a larger sample is necessary to ensure generalizability and further evaluate stability. This study also demonstrates the utility of HLM analytic techniques for serial fMRI studies, in which separating within-participants variance (individual changes in activation) from between-participants factors (time or treatment) is critical. ► Alcohol cues elicit ventral and dorsal striatum activation among alcoholics. ► Right-sided striatal activation has good within-subjects reliability across two weeks. ► Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) can be used to model ROI timecourse data. ► HLM estimates within- and between-subjects variance better than repeated ANOVA.