Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Brain Sciences
Abstract
Background: It is known that being the adult child of a parent with an alcohol use disorder (ACoA) can confer a wide variety of increased health and psychological risks, including higher rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Additionally, ACoAs are at greater risk of developing alcohol/substance use disorders (AUDs/SUDs) than individuals from families without a history of AUDs.
Methods: ACoA individuals with risky hazardous alcohol use (n = 14) and those not engaged in hazardous use (n = 14) were compared to a group of healthy controls. We examined structural brain differences and applied machine learning algorithms to predict biological brain and DNA methylation ages to investigate differences and determine any accelerated aging between these groups.
Results: Hazardous and non-hazardous ACoA groups had lower predicted brain ages than the healthy control group (n = 100), which may result from neuro-developmental differences between ACoA groups and controls. Within specific brain regions, we observed decreased cortical volume within bilateral pars orbitalis and frontal poles, and the left middle temporal gyrus and entorhinal cortex within the hazardous alcohol ACoA group. When looking at the epigenetic aging data, the hazardous ACoA participants had increased predicted epigenetic age difference scores compared to the control group (n = 34) and the non-hazardous ACoA participant groups.
Conclusions: The results demonstrate a decreased brain age in the ACoAs compared to control, concurrent with increased epigenetic age specifically in the hazardous ACoA group, laying the foundation for future research to identify individuals with an increased susceptibility to developing hazardous alcohol use. Together, these results provide a better understanding of the associations between epigenetic factors, brain structure, and alcohol use disorders.
DOI
10.3390/brainsci14121263
Publication Date
12-16-2024
Keywords
anxiety, alcohol, methylation, MRI, brain age, methylation age
ISSN
2076-3425
Recommended Citation
Scholl JL, Pearson K, Fercho K, Van Asselt AJ, Kallsen NA, Ehli EA, Potter KN, Brown-Rice KA, Forster GL, Baugh LA. Differing Effects of Alcohol Use on Epigenetic and Brain Age in Adult Children of Parents with Alcohol Use Disorder. Brain Sciences. 2024; 14(12). doi: 10.3390/brainsci14121263.
