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Altered brain cortical maturation is found in adolescents with a family history of alcoholism

Substance‐naïve offspring from high‐density alcohol use disorder (AUD) families exhibit altered subcortical brain volumes structurally and altered executive‐functioning and emotion‐processing functionally, compared with their peers. However, there is a dearth of literature exploring alterations of cortical thickness (CTh) in this population. T1‐weighted structural brain MRI was acquired in 75 substance‐naïve male offspring of treatment‐seeking early onset (<25 years) AUD patients with high familial loading of AUDs (≥2 affected relatives) (FHP) and 65 age‐matched substance‐naïve male controls with negative family history from the community. Surface‐based CTh reconstruction was done using FreeSurfer. Univariate general linear models were implemented at each vertex using SurfStat, controlling for age (linear and quadratic effects), and head size, to examine the main effect of familial AUD risk on CTh and its relationship with externalizing symptom score (ESS). A Johnson–Neyman procedure revealed that the main effect of familial AUD risk on CTh was seen during adolescence, where the FHP group had thicker cortices involving bilateral precentral gyri, left caudal middle frontal gyrus (MFG), bilateral temporo‐parietal junction, left inferior‐frontal gyrus and right inferior‐temporal gyrus. Thicker cortices in left MFG and inferior‐parietal lobule were also associated with greater ESS within both groups. More importantly, these group differences diminished with age by young adulthood. Familial AUD risk is associated with age‐related differences in maturation of several higher order association cortices that are critical to ongoing development in executive function, emotion regulation and social cognition during adolescence. Early supportive intervention for a delay in alcohol initiation during this critical phase may be crucial for this at‐risk population.