Binge drinking and age at first full drink (AFD) of alcohol prior to 21 years (AFD < 21) have been linked to neuroanatomical differences in cortical and subcortical grey matter (GM) volume, cortical thickness, and surface area. Despite the importance of understanding network-level relationships, structural covariation patterns among these morphological measures have yet to be examined in relation to binge drinking and AFD < 21. Here, we used the Joint and Individual Variance Explained (JIVE) method to characterize structural covariation patterns common across and specific to morphological measures in 293 participants (149 individuals with past-12-month binge drinking and 144 healthy controls) from the Human Connectome Project (HCP). An independent dataset (Nathan Kline Institute Rockland Sample; NKI-RS) was used to examine reproducibility/generalizability. We identified a reproducible joint component dominated by structural covariation between GM volume in the brainstem and thalamus proper, and GM volume and surface area in prefrontal cortical regions. Using linear mixed regression models, we found that participants with AFD < 21 showed lower joint component scores in both the HCP (beta = 0.059, p-value = 0.016; Cohen’s d = 0.441) and NKI-RS (beta = 0.023, p-value = 0.040, Cohen’s d = 0.216) datasets, whereas the individual thickness component associated with binge drinking (p-value = 0.02) and AFD < 21 (p-value < 0.001) in the HCP dataset was not statistically significant in the NKI-RS sample. Our findings were also generalizable to the HCP full sample (n = 880 participants). Taken together, our results show that use of JIVE analysis in high-dimensional, large-scale, psychiatry-related datasets led to discovery of a reproducible cortical and subcortical structural covariation pattern involving brain regions relevant to thalamic-PFC-brainstem neural circuitry which is related to AFD < 21 and suggests a possible extension of existing addiction neurocircuitry in humans.

暴饮暴食和 21 岁前首次完全饮酒 (AFD) 的年龄 (AFD < 21) 与皮质和皮质下灰质 (GM) 体积、皮质厚度和表面积的神经解剖学差异有关。尽管了解网络级关系很重要，但这些形态测量之间的结构协变模式尚未与酗酒和 AFD < 21 相关联。在这里，我们使用了联合和个体方差解释 (JIVE) 方法来表征结构协变来自人类连接组计划 (HCP) 的 293 名参与者（过去 12 个月酗酒的 149 个人和 144 名健康对照者）的形态测量共有和特定的模式。一个独立的数据集（Nathan Kline Institute Rockland Sample；NKI-RS) 用于检查可重复性/普遍性。我们确定了一个可重复的关节成分，主要由脑干和丘脑的 GM 体积与前额叶皮层区域的 GM 体积和表面积之间的结构协变主导。使用线性混合回归模型，我们发现 AFD < 21 的参与者在 HCP（β = 0.059，p 值 = 0.016；Cohen's d = 0.441）和 NKI-RS（β = 0.023，p- value = 0.040, Cohen's d = 0.216) 数据集，而 HCP 数据集中与暴饮暴食相关的个体厚度分量（p 值 = 0.02）和 AFD < 21（p 值 < 0.001）在 NKI 中没有统计学意义- RS 样品。我们的发现也适用于 HCP 完整样本（n = 880 名参与者）。综合起来，