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Regional cerebral blood flow abnormalities in chronic solvent abusers
Author(s) -
Okada ShinIchi,
Yamanouchi Naoto,
Kodama Kazuhiro,
Uchida Yoshitaka,
Hirai Shinji,
Sakamoto Tadashi,
Noda Shingo,
Komatsu Naoya,
Sato Toshio
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
psychiatry and clinical neurosciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1440-1819
pISSN - 1323-1316
DOI - 10.1046/j.1440-1819.1999.00557.x
Subject(s) - cerebral blood flow , apathy , perfusion , prefrontal cortex , cardiology , medicine , psychology , psychiatry , disease , cognition
This study aimed to reveal regional abnormalities of cerebral blood flow (CBF) and their relation to amotivational syndrome which causes poor social prognosis in solvent abusers. Sixteen chronic solvent abusers (12 males and four females) along with five normal subjects underwent single photon emission computed tomography with N ‐isopropyl‐p[ 123 I]iodoamphetamine. The patients received a clinical evaluation with the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. Using a semiquantitative method (normalized by the parietal cortex count), patients showed a statistically significant decrease in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the bilateral prefrontal cortices ( P < 0.01). In addition, the severity of hypoperfusion in the bilateral prefrontal cortices was related to the degree of severity of the avolition–apathy scale on SANS (left; P < 0.05, right; P < 0.01) even after excluding the effect of antipsychotics. These results suggest that rCBF abnormalities, especially in the prefrontal cortex, develop in chronic solvent abusers, and that this frontal hypoperfusion may be a biological basis of amotivational syndrome.