Brain Structural and Functional Changes
Associated with Addiction and Recovery
Qinghua He, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Southwest University, Chongqing, China

Addiction and its underlying neural mechanism
MRI and fMRI background
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Food Addiction
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Facebook Addiction
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Cocaine Addiction and Recovery

Addiction and its underlying neural mechanism

Substance Dependence
Cocaine; Heroin; Methamphetamine; Nicotine; etc.
Behavior Addiction
Internet Addiction; Overeating; Pathological gambling;
Compulsive shopping; etc.

Neural Mechanisms underlying Addiction
Noel, Brevers, Bechara, 2013, Current Opinions in Nueorbiology

Addiction and its underlying neural mechanism
MRI and fMRI background

Superconducting
1-7 Tesla for human magnets

Source: http://www.cis.rit.edu/class/schp730/lect/lect-2.htm

Source: http://www.martinos.org/neurorecovery/technology.htm

Borrowed from FSL Course 2012, Bristol, UK

Addiction and its underlying neural mechanism
MRI and fMRI background
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Food Addiction

Compulsive eating
Binge eating
Obesity

Brain Structure Bases
He et al., 2015, Brain Structure and Function

Brain Structure Bases
He et al., 2015, Brain Structure and Function

Brain Structure Bases
He et al., 2015, Brain Structure and Function

Brain Structure Bases
Regression Analysis all three factors made unique contributions to BMI
Mediation Analysis
IGT score in the first 40 trials mediated the association between GMV in the MCC region and BMI (indirect effect = -0.23, p<0.05) as well as between the number of white matter tracks passing this region and BMI
(indirect effect = -0.27, p<0.05).
He et al., 2015, Brain Structure and Function

Functional Bases
He et al., 2014, Nutrition Journal

Functional Bases
He et al., 2014, Nutrition Journal

Functional Bases
He et al., 2014, Nutrition Journal

Functional Bases
He et al., 2014, Frontiers in Neuroscience

Functional Bases
He et al., 2014, Frontiers in Neuroscience

Impulsive System
Hyper-active
Inhibition Control System
Hypo-active

Addiction and its underlying neural mechanism
MRI and fMRI background
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Food Addiction
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Facebook Addiction

Turel & He et al., 2014, Psychological Reports

Turel & He et al., 2014, Psychological Reports

Turel & He et al., 2014, Psychological Reports

Impulsive System
Hyper-active
Control System
Maybe intact

Addiction and its underlying neural mechanism
MRI and fMRI background
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Food Addiction
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Facebook Addiction
Structural and Functional changes associated with
Cocaine Addiction and Recovery

Combine fMRI, sMRI and DTI to understand the neurocognitive mechanism and recovery of drug addiction sMRI
Gray matter volume, cortical thickness
DTI
White matter tractography fMRI
Cue Task
Cup Task
Resting State

Group Difference
A VS Controls; difference between users and control
A VS D | A VS BCD effects of recover
D VS Controls the brain region not showing recover
Correlation with Years of recovery
Positive
Negative

Cocaine-related pictures VS Nature pictures
Block design

Actually, the ACC activation showed a positive activation with recover; but VMPFC does not
The activation of ACC seems recover
But the activation of the VMPFC never recover

Substance Addiction is like a brain disease
Some of the brain function were damaged permanently
Some functions could recover
Different neural systems were engaged in different types of addictions
Impulsive system mostly engaged in the Facebook Addiction
Impulsive system and reflective system engaged in the food
Addiction
The decision making process doesn’t seem to recover in Cocaine
Addiction

UCLA
Prof. Yih-Ing Hser
USC
Prof. Antoine Bechara
Dr. Lin Xiao
Beijing Normal University
Prof. Qi Dong
Prof. Gui Xue
Dr. Chunhui Chen
UC Irvine
Prof. Chuansheng Chen
The Ohio State University
Prof. Zhong-Lin Lu
Cal State Fullerton
Prof. Ofir Turel