# Connectomic Dysfunction Underlying Cognitive Impairment in Alcohol Use Disorder and the Link to Alzheimer’s Disease

> **NIH NIH F31** · MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA · 2022 · $44,207

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) are two disorders that share a high cost of
degraded life quality, high mortality, and poor prognosis. Recent evidence suggests that AUD is a risk factor for
AD though the exact relationship between the two disorders is unknown. The proposed study aims to elucidate
this relationship by determining which functional neuropathologies are associated with cognitive decline in AUD
and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a cognitive pathology which frequently precedes dementia. This
project will collect resting and task-based fMRI data from AUD participants and use existing data from MCI and
healthy controls (HC). The two task paradigms consist of an episodic memory encoding task and a spatial
working-memory task. The resting-state data will be used to extract the default mode network, the episodic
memory encoding task data will be used to extract the episodic memory network, and the spatial working-
memory task data will be used to extract the spatial working-memory network. Graph-theory metrics will
be used to characterize connectome profiles associated with cognitive impairment, as measured by Montreal
Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score. The primary hypotheses are that graph-theory features of the episodic
memory network and/or the default mode networks in healthy controls will show alterations in the AUD and
MCI group and that these alterations are associated with MoCA score. The exploratory hypothesis is that
graph-theory scores of the spatial working-memory network will be associated with MoCA score in AUD
subjects. If the hypotheses are confirmed it could provide initial evidence that AUD increases the risk of
AD through cognitive impairment that results from compounding mild pre-existing deficits in at-risk individuals.
Such evidence could guide future treatments for both disorders by elucidating novel treatment targets which
could stop or slow the progression of cognitive decline.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10607286
- **Project number:** 1F31AA030217-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
- **Principal Investigator:** Graham Warner
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $44,207
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-12-01 → 2024-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10607286

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10607286, Connectomic Dysfunction Underlying Cognitive Impairment in Alcohol Use Disorder and the Link to Alzheimer’s Disease (1F31AA030217-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10607286. Licensed CC0.

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