Brain White Matter Abnormalities In Adolescent Smoking Addicts Based On Automatic Quantification Of Fiber Tracts

Smoking has become one of the most serious public health problems.The smoking rate of young people is as high as 7%,which poses a great threat and harm to the physical and mental health of young people.In recent years,neuroimaging studies have shown that smoking is thought to be closely related to changes in white matter structure.Previous diffusion tensor imaging(DTI)studies have investigated abnormal white matter integrity in smokers.However,few researchers have been able to investigate the changes in diffusion parameters of specific fiber bundles at multiple locations in young smokers.Therefore,this thesis used automated fiber quantification(AFQ)to explore the study of white matter in adolescent smokers.37 young smokers and 29 age-,education-and gendermatched healthy non-smokers participated in this study.Automated Fiber Quantification(AFQ)was employed to investigate the WM microstructure in young smokers by integrating multiple indices.Diffusion parameters,that is,fractional anisotropy(FA),axial diffusion(AD),radial diffusion(RD)and mean diffusion(MD),were calculated at 100 points along the length of 18 major brain tracts,and explored the relationship between neuroimaging differences and clinical behaviors including Fagerstr?m Test of Nicotine Dependence(FTND)and Pack-years.Compared with non-smokers,young smokers showed significantly increased FA,AD and decreased RD in the left uncinate fasciculus(UF)and right thalamic radiation(TR),increased AD,RD and decreased FA in the right arcuate fasciculus(Arc).Correlation analyses revealed that FA values of the left UF and RD values of the right Arc were negatively correlated with FTND score in smokers and FA values of the right Arc were positively correlated with FTND scores.Positive correlation was observed between AD values of the left UF and Pack-years in smokers.AFQ can localize abnormalities and predict behavioral outcomes in individual subjects based on diffusion tensor imaging data,and this anatomical specificity could potentially improve our understanding of the critical role of these white matter changes in smokers.