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J Nucl Med. 2008; 49 (Supplement 1):235P
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Neurosciences: Psychiatry

Psychiatry Posters

Imaging alcohol-induced dopamine release in the human striatum

Diana Martinez1, Lawrence Kegeles1, Mark Slifstein1, Elizabeth Hackett1, Nina Urban1, Mitsuru Toda1, John Castrillon1, Jennifer Bae1, John Krystal2 and Anissa Abi-Dargham1

1 Columbia University/NYSPI, New York, New York; ; 2 Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut

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Objectives: Psychostimulant induced dopamine release can be measured with PET by the decrease in [11C]raclopride. Studies measuring alcohol induced dopamine release are less conclusive. This study measured alcohol-induced [11C]raclopride displacement in the mesolimbic and nigrostriatal striatum in healthy control subjects.

Methods: 15 healthy volunteers, all moderate drinkers, were scanned with [11C]raclopride after oral alcohol (75g/kg) and after a sham drink. The regions of interest included the limbic striatum (LST), associative striatum (AST) and sensori-motor striatum (SMST). The outcome measure was the alcohol-induced percent decrease in the specific to nonspecific partition coefficient (BPND, unitless. Subjects were asked to rate their subjective response to alcohol by reporting their feeling of happiness, restlessness, anxiety, and energy on a scale of 1 to 10.

Results: The change in BPND resulting from the alcohol administration was as follows: -5.5 ± 13 % (p =0.11) in the LST, -1.8 ± 12% in the AST, 0.14 ± 10% in the SMST, and -1.5 ± 10.8% in the striatum as a whole. A correlation was seen between alcohol-induced [11C]raclopride displacement and the subjective rating of happiness (r = 0.38, p = 0.16) in the LST only. No correlation was seen between the remaining subjective measures and [11C]raclopride displacement.

Conclusions: The effect of alcohol on [11C]raclopride is associated with a great degree of variability. The largest displacement is in the limbic striatum, where displacement relates to the euphoriant effect of alcohol. These observations, if confirmed in a larger sample, are consistent with the preclinical data and offer a tool to probe the dopaminergic reward system to alcohol in at risk individuals.

Research Support: Supported by NIAAA.





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Right arrow Articles by Abi-Dargham, A.
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Right arrow Articles by Abi-Dargham, A.