Men and women tend to differ in the age of first alcohol consumption, transition into disordered drinking, and the prevalence of alcohol use disorder. Here, we use a unique longitudinal dataset to test for potentially predispositonal sex-biases in brain organization prior to initial alcohol exposure. Our study combines measures of subcortical morphometry gathered in alcohol naive individuals during childhood (mean age: 9.43 years, SD = 2.06) with self-report measures of alcohol use in the same individuals an average of 17 years later (N = 81, 46 males, 35 females). We observe that pediatric amygdala and hippocampus volume both show sex-biased relationships with adult drinking. Specifically, females show a stronger association between subcortical volumetric reductions in childhood and peak drinking in adulthood as compared to males. Detailed analysis of subcortical shape localizes these effects to the rostro-medial hippocampus and basolateral amygdala subnuclei. In contrast, we did not observe sex-specific associations between striatal anatomy and peak alcohol consumption. These results are consistent with a model in which organization of the amygdala and hippocampus in childhood is more relevant for subsequent patterns of peak alcohol use in females as compared to males. Differential neuroanatomical precursors of alcohol use in males and females could provide a potential developmental basis for well recognized sex-differences in alcohol use behaviors.. Thus, our findings not only indicate that brain correlates of human alcohol consumption are manifest long before alcohol initiation, but that some of these correlates are not equivalent between males and females.

男性和女性在首次饮酒的年龄、酗酒的转变以及酒精使用障碍的患病率方面往往存在差异。在这里，我们使用独特的纵向数据集来测试在初次接触酒精之前大脑组织中潜在的易感性性别偏见。我们的研究结合了在童年时期从未酗酒的个体（平均年龄：9.43 岁，SD = 2.06）中收集的皮质下形态测定测量值与平均 17 年后同一个体的饮酒情况的自我报告测量值（N = 81，46 名男性） ，35 名女性）。我们观察到，儿童杏仁核和海马体积均与成人饮酒存在性别偏见关系。具体而言，与男性相比，女性儿童时期皮质下体积减少与成年饮酒高峰之间的关联性更强。对皮质下形状的详细分析将这些影响定位于吻内侧海马和基底外侧杏仁核亚核。相反，我们没有观察到纹状体解剖结构与饮酒峰值之间的性别特异性关联。这些结果与一个模型一致，在该模型中，与男性相比，女性儿童期杏仁核和海马体的组织与随后的酒精使用高峰模式更相关。男性和女性饮酒的神经解剖学前体差异可以为公认的饮酒行为性别差异提供潜在的发育基础。因此，我们的研究结果不仅表明人类饮酒的大脑相关性早在开始饮酒之前就已经显现出来，而且其中一些相关性在男性和女性之间并不相同。