Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Neuroscience Letters 428 (2007) 21–26 The relationship between brain morphometry and neuropsychological performance in alcohol dependence Dong-Pyo Jang a , Kee Namkoong b,c , Jae-Jin Kim b,c , Sangjin Park d , In-Young Kim e , Sun I. Kim e , Young-Bo Kim a , Zang-Hee Cho a , Eun Lee c,d,∗ a Neuroscience Research Institute, Gachon University of Medicine and Science, Incheon, Korea b Department of Psychiatry, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea c Institute of Behavioral Science in Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea d Department of Psychiatry, National Health Insurance Corporation Ilsan Hospital, Goyang, Korea e Department of Biomedical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea Received 2 June 2007; received in revised form 17 September 2007; accepted 19 September 2007 Abstract The aim of this study was to explore local brain atrophy of patients with alcohol dependence using a voxel-based analysis of magnetic resonance images and to investigate the relationship of those atrophic regions with drinking history and neuropsychological performances. Statistical parametric mapping was applied for the global and regional comparison of segmented gray matter and white matter images from 20 patients with alcohol dependence and with those from 20 controls. The Rey auditory-verbal learning test, Rey-Osterrieth complex figure test, Stroop test, trail-making test, and Wisconsin card sorting test were conducted as neuropsychological evaluations. There was a significant decrease in both gray matter and white matter globally in alcohol dependence. Bilateral parahippocampal white matter areas were reduced in particular. Perseverative responses and perseverative errors in the Wisconsin card sorting test had significant correlation with the decrease of gray matter decrease including the left superior temporal gyri and right postcentral region. The psychological performance measures correlated with gray matter rather than white matter, whereas right temporal white matter correlated with drinking amount for last 4 weeks. This may imply that alcohol consumption in heavy amounts damages both gray matter and white matter, and gray matter atrophy mainly leads to cognitive impairment, whereas white matter is related to drinking history. © 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Voxel-based morphometry; Alcoholism; Drinking history; Neuropsychological impairment It is well known through animal experiments, postmortem, and neuroimaging studies that the chronic alcohol consumption is associated with brain deformation [6,14,24]. Wide spread gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) losses in alcohol depen- dence were reported including in the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and subcortical area [18,24]. In addition to structural brain atro- phy, neuropsychological impairments have been one of main symptoms of alcohol dependent subjects [37]. According to previous reports, alcohol dependent subjects are particularly sus- ceptible to executive function impairment that is related to the impairment of frontal lobe function [8,22]. Some studies have ∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychiatry, National Health Insurance Corporation Ilsan Hospital, 1232, Baekseok-dong, Ilsandong-gu, Gyeonggi-do 410-719, Korea. Tel.: +81 31 900 0480; fax: +82 31 900 0481. E-mail address: leeeun@korea.com (E. Lee). reported the association between frontal lobe function and brain volume in alcohol dependence [10,32,36]. However, one study showed no cognitive impairment in alcoholics [10] and the others focused on particular regions of the brain [32,36]. Furthermore, there was a report of no significant relationship between the volume of frontal regions and executive function deficits [29]. Although Chanraud et al. [5] recently showed that regional alter- ation in gray and WM volume was associated with impairment of executive function, the relationship between executive func- tion impairment and brain atrophy in alcoholism has been less fully studied. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) has become an effective tool for the analysis of local brain impairment in the whole brain due to operator independent and automatic processing. Thus, VBM has been used to assess brain deformation in alcohol dependence [5,20]. Widespread cerebral atrophy in patients with alcohol addiction including precentral, middle frontal gyrus, 0304-3940/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2007.09.047