Associations between mesolimbic connectivity, and alcohol use from adolescence to adulthood

Fig. 1. Associations between recent alcohol use and ventral tegmental area – nucleus accumbens connectivity. Trend lines are predicted values with 95 % confidence intervals for main effects of age (A) and alcohol (B) on ventral tegmental area (VTA) – nucleus accumbens (NAcc) resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) extracted from the final best-fitting model. Male participants (blue) exhibited greater VTA –NAcc RSFC than female participants (red, β = 0.21, p < 0.0001); however, there were no significant effects of age (A, displays individual trajectories for 796 participants). Greater recent alcohol use was associated with greater VTA-NAcc RSFC (β = 0.05, p = 0.004; B). Confidence intervals reflect uncertainty in predicted values across all subjects and do not account for variation due to random effects.

Fig. 2. Associations between recent alcohol use and ventral tegmental area – globus pallidus connectivity. Trend lines represent predicted values and 95 % confidence intervals for nonsignificant main effects of age extracted from the best-fitting model for ventral tegmental area (VTA) – globus pallidus (GP) resting state functional connectivity (RSFC, A, displays individual trajectories for 796 participants). Male participants (blue) exhibited greater VTA – GP RSFC than female participants (A, red, β = 0.13, p < 0.005). There was an age-by-recent alcohol use interaction on VTA – GP RSFC (β = −0.07, p = 0.004). The interaction was driven by stronger positive associations between alcohol use and VTA-GP RSFC at earlier as opposed to later ages (B). Confidence intervals reflect uncertainty in predicted values across all subjects and do not account for variation due to random effects.