Brain network patterns in childhood linked to early alcohol use

Children who go on to start drinking alcohol before age 15 may already show distinctive patterns of brain organization years earlier, according to research published in Translational Psychiatry. The findings suggest that certain brain network features could act as early markers of vulnerability to adolescent alcohol use.

Beginning alcohol use at a young age has long been associated with an increased risk of later alcohol problems, as well as mental health difficulties and other negative outcomes. Scientists have previously identified differences in brain structure among adolescents who drink alcohol, but most studies have focused on specific brain regions. Increasingly, researchers view the brain as an interconnected network, raising the question of whether whole-brain organization might reveal risks that individual regions cannot.

The researchers wanted to determine whether brain differences existed before alcohol use began. If such differences could be identified, they might help explain why some young people are more likely than others to start drinking early.

Led by Hollie Byrne from the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at the University of Sydney, the team analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The researchers examined MRI scans collected when participants were 9 to 10 years old and compared youth who later consumed a full alcoholic drink before age 15 with those who did not. The primary analysis used matched groups of 160 early initiators and 160 non-initiators.

The study found little evidence that future drinkers differed from their peers in specific brain regions. Once the researchers accounted for the large number of statistical tests being conducted, no individual areas of the brain reliably distinguished children who would later begin drinking from those who would not.

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However, a different picture emerged when the team examined the brain as a network. Children who later initiated alcohol use showed lower network segregation, meaning that groups of neighboring brain regions appeared less specialized. They also showed higher network integration and efficiency, indicating stronger but atypical communication across distant regions of the brain.

“Patterns of lower segregation and higher integration are consistent with a neuroanatomical profile suggestive of disrupted or atypical cortical maturation,” Byrne and colleagues noted.

They also found that future drinkers reported higher levels of sensation seeking, a personality characteristic linked to risk-taking behavior. Otherwise, the groups were largely similar on psychological, behavioral, and cognitive measures.

Byrne’s team concluded: “These findings suggest that cortical thickness network topology at ages 9–10 may serve as a neuroanatomical risk marker for early adolescent alcohol initiation.”

The researchers caution that the study has some limitations. The number of young people who began drinking early was relatively small, which may have reduced the stability of some findings. In addition, demographic matching cannot fully account for cultural, social, and environmental influences that may shape both brain development and alcohol use.

The study, “Brain network features predating early alcohol initiation in adolescence,” was authored by Hollie Byrne, Ryan Visontay, Erin K. Devine, Natasha E. Wade, Joanna Jacobus, Lindsay M. Squeglia, and Lexine Mewton.