Exploring the relationship between white matter integrity, cocaine use and GAD polymorphisms using Bayesian Model Averaging

Past investigations utilizing diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) have demonstrated that cocaine use disorder (CUD) yields white matter changes, primarily in the corpus callosum. By applying Bayesian model averaging using multiple linear regression in DTI, we demonstrate there may exist relationships between the impaired white matter and glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) polymorphisms. This work explored the two-way and three-way interactions between GAD1(a) (SNP: rs1978340) and GAD1(b) (SNP: rs769390) polymorphisms and years of cocaine use (YCU). GAD1(a) was associated with more frontal white matter changes on its own but GAD1(b) was associated with more midbrain and cerebellar changes as well as a greater increase in white matter changes in the context of chronic cocaine use. The three-way interaction GAD1(a)|GAD1(b)|YCU appeared to be roughly an average of the polymorphism two-way interactions GAD1(a)|YCU and GAD1(b)|YCU. The three-way interaction demonstrated multiple regions including corpus callosum which featured fewer significant voxel changes, perhaps suggesting a small protective effect of having both polymorphisms on corpus callosum and cerebellar peduncle.