Deborah Xiu-Ning Lin1, Shu-Wei Chu1, Ming-Chou Ho2, and Jun-Cheng Weng1,3
1Department of Medical Imaging and Radiological Sciences, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan, 2Department of Psychology, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan, 3Department of Medical Imaging, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
Betel
nut is the seed of the betel palm,
which grows in the tropical
or subtropical regions, especially in Taiwan, India, China and
parts of east Africa. It has been
confirmed that chewing
betel nuts can be addicted to it and is also carcinogenic to humans. Chewing
betel nuts lead to a greatly increased risk
of developing a range of serious diseases, including oral and esophagus cancers. In Taiwan, 88% of people who were
diagnosed to oral
cancer have the habit of chewing betel nuts, but very few researches studied on
how chewing betel nuts effects brian structure. Therefore, in this study we tried to find out the structural volume
and shape changes in the brain between betel nut chewers and healthy controls with voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and vertex-wise shape analyses. In
addition, the relationship between brain structural volume size and implicit
attitude or inhibitory control were also discussed.
