Earlier alcohol use onset prospectively predicts changes in functional connectivity.

BACKGROUND: Half of all new alcohol initiates are between 12 and 17 years old. This is a period of intense neurodevelopment, including changes in functional connectivity patterns among higher-order function areas. It is crucial to understand how alcohol-related neurotoxicity may be influenced by drinking onset age.

DESIGN: This study prospectively examined the effects of age of first drink on frontoparietal context-dependent functional connectivity (cdFC) during a visual working memory task. Youth 13.5 years of age (SD = 1.2) underwent a neuropsychological and neuroimaging session before drinking initiation and at follow-up 6 years later. Hierarchical linear regressions examined if youth with earlier ages of onset for first and weekly alcohol use showed higher follow-up cdFC between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex regions of interest and whole-brain exploratory regions, controlling for pre-drinking cdFC. Higher follow-up cdFC was hypothesized to be correlated with poorer performances in neuropsychological performance.

RESULTS: Exploratory whole-brain analyses showed that, as hypothesized, earlier ages of weekly drinking onset were associated with higher cdFC between the bilateral posterior cingulate and cortical and subcortical areas implicated in attentional processes, which was in turn associated with poorer performance on neuropsychological tasks of attention, ps < .05. No relationship between age of onset and cdFC between the two ROIs were found.

CONCLUSION: Earlier ages of weekly alcohol use initiation may adversely affect neurodevelopment by reducing developmentally appropriate integration of attentional circuits during a cognitive challenge. Delaying the onset of weekly alcohol use patterns well after early adolescence may reduce the risk for harm of alcohol use on the brain.