Individual atrophy patterns clarify latent neural subtypes in addiction

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Addiction Research
• Brain Disorders

Background:

• Addiction is a heterogeneous brain disorder, limiting group-level neuroimaging utility.
• Individual variability in addiction neurobiology is not well understood.
• Current neuroimaging approaches often overlook personalized differences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a precision neuroimaging framework for capturing individual variability in addiction.
• To identify distinct structural brain patterns associated with different substance use disorders.
• To investigate the relationship between neurobiological heterogeneity and clinical measures.

Main Methods:

• Quantified gray matter volume (GMV) deviations in 464 individuals with addiction using a normative model.
• Utilized a normative model derived from over 1000 healthy controls.
• Applied dimensionality reduction to decompose individual GMV deviations into spatial patterns.

Main Results:

• Identified a shared neuroimaging pattern (insula, prefrontal cortex) across addiction types.
• Observed a pattern centered on the basal ganglia differentiating specific addiction types.
• Found that transdiagnostic factors correlated with clinical measures, unlike heterogeneity factors.

Conclusions:

• Resolved neurobiological heterogeneity into distinct structural atrophy subtypes.
• Provided insights into structural heterogeneity as a localized effect within common brain networks.
• Highlighted the potential of precision neuroimaging for personalized addiction research.