Recruitment and Study Participants
The Yale School of Medicine Human Investigation Committee and the Radiation Safety Committee approved all procedures. Study participants were recruited from the local New Haven population. Participants self-reported at least a single drinking occasion sufficient to reach an estimated BAL of 80 mg/dL in the past three months, operationally defined as more than three drinks for females and more than four drinks for males at intake. This ensured that study participants had prior drinking experience consistent with levels achieved in this study. Participants were asked to recall the two heaviest days of drinking in the previous three months, useful for calculating the BAL achieved for those episodes.
Prior to their participation, all subjects provided written informed consent. Recruited participants had no current or past significant medical or neurological disorders, did not meet DSM-5 criteria for current or past psychiatric or substance use disorder. Subjects who had a history of perceptual distortions, seizures, delirium, or hallucinations upon alcohol withdrawal or scored > 12 on the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment scale at intake appointments was excluded. Additionally, participants did not use psychotropic medication over the month prior to participation. Participants medically contraindicated to consuming alcohol were also excluded. Negative pregnancy tests were required for all females during screening and on the day of radiotracer administration. During intake and on scan day, alcohol drinking over the prior 30 days was recorded with the Alcohol Timeline Followback Interview26. A total of eight social drinkers (five women and three men) were recruited to participate (see Results and Table 1 for demographics). One subject met criteria for mild AUD.
Experimental Design
All subjects participated in two [11C]ABP688 PET scans and a laboratory alcohol drinking session (see Fig. 1). Participants were asked to abstain from alcohol for at least 48 hours prior to the study day, confirmed by self-report. Abstinence on the morning of scanning was confirmed with a negative breath alcohol test. Baseline [11C]ABP688 PET scans were acquired on the ‘Baseline Day’. Two to three weeks after the Baseline Day, participants came in for the ‘Alcohol Challenge Day’. The Alcohol Challenge Day started with a standardized lunch. Next, at approximately 12:00 pm, participants consumed an alcohol dose calculated to achieve a BAL of at least 60 mg/dL. The dose was prepared taking into account the participant’s total body water (based on sex, age, height, and weight), duration of drinking, and ratio of alcohol to mixer, based on Watson et al. 's update of the Widmark Eq. 27. Alcohol was administered as 80-proof vodka mixed with a decarbonated, non-caffeinated, and non-caloric drink of the participant’s choice at a 1:3 alcohol-to-mixer ratio. The total volume was divided into three equal drinks, with each consumed over a 10-minute period to pace the rate of consumption, requiring 30 minutes for completion. Immediately after the completion of the laboratory alcohol session, the post-alcohol [11C]ABP688 PET scan was acquired. To avoid the diurnal effects of [11C]ABP68828, PET scans were scheduled at the same time on different days (approximately 12:30 pm).
The Biphasic Alcohol Effects Scale (BAES)29 and Drug Effects Questionnaire (DEQ)30 were used to assess the subjective effects of alcohol. BAES is a 14-item questionnaire on an 11-point scale measuring alcohol's stimulating and sedating effects. DEQ, a 5-item visual analog scale, evaluates the subjective effects of alcohol, and includes items assessing FEEL and HIGH drug effect. BAES was measured at baseline (roughly five minutes prior to the start of the alcohol session), and every 30 minutes after the start of the alcohol session for at least 180 minutes after the start of the alcohol session. DEQ was measured at baseline, and every 15 minutes until at least 45 minutes after the start of the alcohol session.
To measure BAL, venous blood samples were acquired at 30-min intervals from the start of the alcohol drinking session until the end of the scanning routine, including a baseline sample approximately 5 min before the start of the session. BAL was measured with headspace gas chromatography at the Yale-New Haven Hospital Clinical Laboratories using their standard protocol.
Imaging data acquisition
[11C]ABP688 of high E/Z ratio (70:1)16 was synthesized at the Yale PET Center as previously described31, resulting in high molar activities of 420 ± 129 GBq/µmol (minimum = 299 GBq/µmol). PET data were acquired with a High Resolution Research Tomograph (Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Malvern, PA, USA). Head motion data were acquired with an optical motion-tracking tool (Vicra; NDI Systems, Waterloo, ON, Canada). A six-minute transmission scan was acquired for attenuation correction prior to the radiotracer injection. PET data acquisition began simultaneously with the administration of [11C]ABP688 as a slow bolus over one minute. Dynamic PET data were acquired for 90 minutes alongside arterial blood sampling to measure the metabolite-corrected input function16.
On a separate day, all participants underwent T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance (MR) scans, acquired with a Siemens 3.0T scanner (Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Malvern, PA, USA) equipped with a 64-channel head coil, providing high-resolution anatomical maps for PET data coregistration. A sagittal gradient-echo MPRAGE sequence was employed (FOV: 256 × 256 mm², 176 slices at 1 mm thickness, TE: 2.77 ms, TR: 2530 ms, TI: 1100 ms, FA: 7°).
Preprocessing and Kinetic modeling
Dynamic list-mode brain PET data were binned into discrete time frames of increasing length up to five minutes and reconstructed with the MOLAR algorithm32. The first ten minutes of PET brain data were registered to the subject-specific T1-weighted MRI using a mutual information algorithm with six degrees of freedom (FLIRT, FSL 3.2; Analysis Group; FMRIB, Oxford, UK). To define the regions of interest, the native MRI was co-registered to the Montreal Neurological Institute template space with a nonlinear transformation algorithm (BioImage Suite; http://www.bioimagesuite.com). Time-activity curves were generated from the frontal cortex, temporal cortex, striatum, hippocampus, and cerebellum. These regions were chosen due to their known involvement in glutamate neurotransmission and their relevance to the neurobiological effects of alcohol. Regions of interest were gray matter masked as assessed by CAT (A Computational Anatomy Toolbox for Statistical Parametric Mapping [SPM12; Institute of Neurology, University College of London, London, England]; Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany).
For a subset of the participants (n = 4, 2 males, 2 females), arterial blood samples were collected throughout both the scanning procedures. [11C]ABP688 volumes of distribution (VT) were calculated in the selected regions, including the cerebellum. VT is the ratio of [11C]ABP688 concentration in tissue to [11C]ABP688 concentration in arterial plasma at equilibrium and was estimated with the two tissue compartment model (2TCM). However, arterial blood sampling was not available for both scans in three participants, leading us to primarily use [11C]ABP688 non-displaceable binding potential (BPND) as the outcome measure for this study. BPND provides a measure of receptor availability in the brain regions, indicating the density of available receptors in relation to non-displaceable binding.
BP ND and R1 were estimated using the Simplified Reference Tissue Model34 with the cerebellum as the reference region. While the cerebellum is commonly used as a reference region due to its minimal specific binding35,36, there is evidence for small amounts of mGluR5-specific binding, which could bias BPND estimates (see Discussion). R1 values, defined as the ratio of rate constants (K1) describing tracer influx from plasma to the target region and to the reference region, were also estimated. The R1 value quantifies relative radiotracer delivery to different brain regions. Since [11C]ABP688 has high first-pass extraction37, R1 provides a proxy measure of relative blood flow as complements to BPND analyses, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the acute effects of alcohol on brain function.
Statistical analysis
Separate linear mixed-effect models were employed for the statistical analysis of [11C]ABP688 BPND and R1, following confirmation of the data's normal distribution. The constructed model incorporated PET state (baseline vs. post-alcohol) and Region as fixed effects, along with their interaction, while a random intercept accounted for individual variability (PatientID). Post hoc pairwise comparisons (Fisher’s Least Significant Difference) were utilized to determine the impact of alcohol on the frontal cortex, temporal cortex, hippocampus, and striatum.
Alcohol-induced ΔBPND and ΔR1 were quantified as percentage differences ([Post-alcohol – Baseline]/Baseline * 100). Exploratory analyses examined potential relationships between ΔBPND and ΔR1 with the following factors: (1) subjective alcohol effects, (2) peak BAL, and (3) self-reported alcohol consumption over the past month. These analyses were designed to test hypotheses concerning the mGluR5 response to alcohol: (1) its association with subjective alcohol responses, (2) its dependence on alcohol dosage, and (3) its correlation with recent drinking history. Subjective effects analyses focused on stimulation during the ascending limb (30-minute intervals of BAES stimulation, DEQ FEEL, and DEQ HIGH) and sedation during the descending limb (150-minute and 210-minute intervals of BAES sedation). Further partial correlation analyses, controlling for baseline subjective effects, were conducted to explore the associations between ΔBPND and ΔR1 and BAL measures, as well as recent drinking history. Given the exploratory nature of these analyses, Spearman rank correlation coefficients (Spearman’s rho) were calculated without correction for multiple comparisons.
Scan characteristic and VT value comparisons were made using paired t-tests. Statistical analyses were performed using R 4.2.2 (“Innocent and Trusting”) and RStudio (RStudio Team, Boston, MA, USA), with data visualization carried out using GraphPad Prism (v. 9.4.1; GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, United States).