Substance Abuse And Brain Volume: Stimulant Drugs Create Vast Brain Changes In Women

New findings published in the journal Radiology link substance abuse to reduced brain volume in women.

Researchers discovered that stimulant drugs, including ones like amphetamine or cocaine, can result in vast changes in the brain structures that are involved in executive control, learning and reward, even following prolonger abstinence periods from the drug.

"We found that after an average of 13.5 months of abstinence, women who were previously dependent on stimulants had significantly less gray matter volume in several brain areas compared to healthy women," Jody Tanabe, senior author of the study, said in a statement. "These brain areas are important for decision making, emotion, reward processing and habit formation."

For the study, researchers analyzed structural brain magnetic resonance imaging in 127 men and women, including 59 people who were previously dependent on amphetamines, cocaine and/or methamphetamines for about 16 years, with 68 healthy people who were similar in both age and gender.

MRI results showed that just a little over a year of abstinence, women who were still dependent on stimulants had significantly less gray matter volume in the frontal, limbic and temporal regions of their brains.

Researchers believe that the study results may provide a clue into the underlying processes of the clinical course of stimulant abuse in both men and women.

"Compared to men, women tend to begin cocaine or amphetamine use at an earlier age, show accelerated escalation of drug use, report more difficulty quitting and, upon seeking treatment, report using larger quantities of these drugs," she concluded. "We hope that our findings will lead to further investigation into gender differences in substance dependence and, thus, more effective treatments."

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