TY - JOUR TI - Alcoholism gender differences in brain responsivity to emotional stimuli AU - Sawyer, Kayle S AU - Maleki, Nasim AU - Urban, Trinity AU - Marinkovic, Ksenija AU - Karson, Steven AU - Ruiz, Susan M AU - Harris, Gordon J AU - Oscar-Berman, Marlene A2 - Lewis, Ben A2 - Gold, Joshua I VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/04/30 SP - e41723 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e41723 DO - 10.7554/eLife.41723 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41723 AB - Men and women may use alcohol to regulate emotions differently, with corresponding differences in neural responses. We explored how the viewing of different types of emotionally salient stimuli impacted brain activity observed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) from 42 long-term abstinent alcoholic (25 women) and 46 nonalcoholic (24 women) participants. Analyses revealed blunted brain responsivity in alcoholic compared to nonalcoholic groups, as well as gender differences in those activation patterns. Brain activation in alcoholic men (ALCM) was significantly lower than in nonalcoholic men (NCM) in regions including rostral middle and superior frontal cortex, precentral gyrus, and inferior parietal cortex, whereas activation was higher in alcoholic women (ALCW) than in nonalcoholic women (NCW) in superior frontal and supramarginal cortical regions. The reduced brain reactivity of ALCM, and increases for ALCW, highlighted divergent brain regions and gender effects, suggesting possible differences in the underlying basis for development of alcohol use disorders. KW - alcoholism KW - fMRI KW - emotion KW - gender KW - sex KW - brain JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -