Abstract #4219

Brain Cortical Thickness in Adolescents from Multiplex Alcohol Dependence Families

Bharath Holla¹, Rajanikanth Panda², Ganesan Venkatasubramanian³, Rose Dawn Bharath², and Vivek Benegal¹

¹Centre for Addiction Medicine and Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India, ²Cognitive Neuroscience Centre and Department of Neuroimaging and Interventional Radiology (NIIR), National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India, ³Translational Psychiatry Laboratory and Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India

Adolescents with high familial-loading of alcoholism exhibit altered premorbid subcortical and cerebellar brain-volumes compared to their peers. They also differ in brain-activity during executive-functioning, reward, and emotion-processing tasks. However, the changes in the maturation of the cortical thickness during the adolescence in these high-risk (HR) individuals and their relationship with the externalizing-behaviors have never been examined. Our findings reveal wide-spread delays in cortical maturation in HR subjects, which may ultimately contribute to their addiction vulnerability. More importantly, these effects reduce with age by late-adolescence in the absence of substance-misuse. Additionally, cortical thinning was associated with better behavioral control across groups

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