Brain oscillatory functioning after long-term alcohol abstinence

The heterogeneity of the population with alcohol use disorder (AUD) sometimes makes the knowledge generated in areas such as neuroscience appear to be contradictory. One aspect that may help elucidate this apparent contradiction is controlling for certain variables that are not usually controlled, such as the abstinence time in people with AUD. This research aims to study the neuroelectrical oscillations in people with AUD with longer and shorter abstinence time in comparison with healthy individuals. We recruited twenty-nine individuals with AUD with abstinence time longer than fifteen days and shorter than six months (STA), twenty-six individuals with AUD with abstinence time longer than six months and shorter than thirteen months (LTA), and sixteen healthy individuals (HC). All participants underwent electroencephalographic recording in resting-state with eyes closed. The oscillatory activity obtained was analyzed to obtain the spectral power and phase synchronization level. Regarding the obtained spectral power results, these revealed that the STA group showed higher theta band power and lower alpha band power than the LTA and HC groups. The obtained results at the phase synchronization level also show two main results. On the one hand, the STA group showed lower alpha band phase synchronization than the LTA and HC groups. On the other hand, the HC group showed higher beta band phase synchronization than the STA and LTA groups. In conclusion, the obtained results reflect that abstinence maintenance for six or more months appears to produce an important oscillatory brain functioning normalization in people with AUD. •Alcoholics with short-term abstinence showed several oscillatory alterations.•Alcohol long-term abstinence could produce an oscillatory functioning normalization.•Beta band synchronization alteration remains after one year of alcohol abstinence.