Daily Archives: November 15, 2024

Did NASA’s Viking landers accidentally kill life on Mars? Why one scientist thinks so

In 1975, NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, carrying a mission to unlock the secrets of the Red Planet. Soon, it released twin landers that drifted toward the Martian surface and eventually made history as the first American spacecraft to touch down on the world.For over six years, Viking 1 continued to orbit Mars’ Chryse Planitia region while its landers collected soil samples using robotic arms and onboard laboratories, marking a groundbreaking chapter in humanity’s exploration of the Martian environment.At the time, however, little was known about environmental conditions of the Red Planet, and the Viking life detection experiments were modeled after culturing techniques commonly used to identify microbes on Earth. These methods involved adding water and nutrients to those aforementioned soil samples, then monitoring for any signs that suggest microbes might be living in the samples. Such signals were associated with responses to the additives — essentially an influx of components needed to complete normal life cycles as we know them — and included things like growth, reproduction and the consumption of food for energy.One day, both Viking landers reported a potential positive detection of microbial activity in their soil samples, and the findings naturally sparked decades of intense debate. Had we finally found proof of life elsewhere in the universe? However, most scientists now believe the results were negative or — at best — inconclusive. They think it’s more likely that the positive readings have an alternative explanation.

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But that’s most scientists.Related: Life on Mars? 40 Years Later, Viking Lander Scientist Still Says ‘Yes’According to Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany, there may be another facet to this mystery that hasn’t yet been considered: Viking may indeed have discovered life on Mars, but the water-based nature of its life-detection experiments might have unintentionally killed it.Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!In a recent commentary published in the journal Nature Astronomy, titled “We may be looking for Martian life in the wrong place,” he argues that because Mars is even drier than one of the most arid places on Earth, the Atacama Desert, where microbes obtain water through salts that draw moisture from the atmosphere, any analogous Martian life would be highly sensitive to the addition of liquid water. Even one drop too much could threaten their existence.Yet, the Viking experiments were conducted under the assumption that Martian life would require liquid water, like most life forms on Earth. Thus, Schulze-Makuch believes, the results of the experiments might be best explained not as the absence of organic life, but as the human-driven destruction of arid microbial organisms exposed to too much water.If the assumptions about organisms thriving in Mars’ hyperarid conditions are accurate, Schulze-Makuch argues that NASA should rethink its longstanding “follow the water” strategy for finding life beyond Earth. Instead, he suggests adopting a “follow the salts” approach.Space.com sat down with Schulze-Makuch to discuss this intriguing take on the Viking experiments, how the community has reacted to it, and what it might mean for life-seeking experiments going forward.The interview has been edited for length and clarity.This is the first panoramic view ever returned from the surface of Mars. This view from Camera 2 on Viking 1 shows Chryse Planitia on 20 July 1976, shortly after Viking landed. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)What sparked your interest in re-examining the Viking experiments on Mars?I’ve always been intrigued by the Viking life detection experiments. It’s unfortunate that they haven’t received more emphasis because, ultimately, they’re the only direct life detection experiments we’ve conducted on another planet. And yes, the results were confusing, but for scientists, that kind of ambiguity is fascinating — it usually signals that there’s something deeper to understand.Now, nearly 50 years later, we can reexamine those experiments with a much better grasp of Mars’ environment — its complexities — and how certain reactions could unfold there. We’ve also gained invaluable insights into extremophiles on Earth — organisms that survive in the most inhospitable conditions — and how they function. That knowledge helps us interpret the Viking data with a new perspective.Why do you think the Viking experiments might have actually encountered and inadvertently killed Martian life?I did a lot of work in the Atacama Desert, which is an analog environment to Mars. And we got some “Blues Clues” about how organisms survive there. From there, it wasn’t that difficult to put it together. I presented this idea about a year ago at a special meeting on life in the universe, hosted by the King of the Netherlands. Many European Space Agency scientists were there, and I thought afterwards I may get some backlash, but they took it surprisingly well. The science concept in this case is that salts, and organisms with the help of the salts, can pull water directly from the atmosphere. There’s also an effect where, as water is removed, there’s a sort of delay — a hysteresis — because the system resists crystallization. This means water can remain in a salt longer than expected, which is crucial because it raises the water activity on a microscopic level, making it accessible to microbes. Life is very good at taking advantage of these physical or chemical effects. There are plenty of examples in biology, which is very good at using these kinds of effects — I’d nearly call them tricks because they’re using this kind of quirky physics or chemistry.Of course, I can’t say there’s definitely an organism on Mars exploiting these effects. But Mars, almost 4 billion years ago, was so much like Earth, with abundant water. As it became drier, moving toward its current desert state, these are the kinds of adaptations I’d expect any remaining life to develop.How do organisms in Earth’s deserts survive by pulling water out of the salts? It is the same thing if you think about rice in a salt dispenser, where the rice grains are inside to keep the salt dry — otherwise it would become all clumpy. The rice grains are more hygroscopic than the salt grains, so they attract more water from the atmosphere. It’s the same thing we see in the Salars, where ancient salt lakes dried up, leaving behind salt deposits, but there is still a little moisture in the atmosphere above these deposits. Depending on the type of salt, it can attract and absorb moisture. We call this process hygroscopicity, and it allows the salt to become damp, eventually forming a brine, which is then called deliquescence.We see this even with common table salt — it can draw in enough moisture from the air to create a brine, in which certain bacteria thrive, even in fully saturated sodium chloride solutions. While more complex salts like perchlorates or chlorates are tougher environments, some organisms can tolerate fairly high concentrations. The main salt on Mars appears to be sodium chloride, which means this idea could work.(Image credit: NASA)Do you believe the assumption that life requires water hinders our understanding of extraterrestrial life and how we look for it?In general, I would agree with that — but not for Mars. Mars and Earth are so much alike, and you have a lot of the same kind of minerals, though not the same variety on Mars that Earth has because there are a lot of minerals on Earth that are formed by biology. But they are otherwise very, very similar. They are both terrestrial planets, somewhat similar in their distances away from the sun. If we expect life on Mars, we would be expecting that dependence on water as well. I think if you would look for life, for example, on Titan, where surface conditions vary greatly, then I would agree that this requirement for water would hinder our search. But for Mars itself, I don’t see a problem.How might the Viking experiments have led to a false negative result that life doesn’t exist on Mars?Imagine something similar happened to you [as a human]. For example, if there was an alien in a spaceship coming down to Earth and found you somewhere in the desert. Then they said ‘OK, look, that’s a human and it needs water,’ and puts you directly in the middle of the ocean. You wouldn’t like that, right? Even though that is what we are. We are water-filled bags, but too much water is a bad thing, and I think that’s what happened with the Viking life-detection experiments. There was one study done in the Atacama Desert where there was torrential rain and it flooded a huge area. Afterwards, the scientists found that 70-80% of the indigenous bacteria died because they couldn’t handle that much water so suddenly. This really fits into the same picture.How would you design a new experiment that would take this into account and could maybe detect these life forms?I think the most important thing is that one experiment on its own cannot allow us to make a decision. For example, one might assume that Martian organisms have exactly the same DNA as those on Earth, and so we might devise an experiment to go looking for that material. But what if it’s different? You would then have to have several different experiments to test this out and make a sure conclusion.In the case of the Viking life-detection experiments, these people were not stupid and I think the approach was right at that time, but the scientists didn’t really know anything about the Martian environment. What they were doing was very sophisticated for the time. And now, we have much better tools and much better insights and better methodologies.I think, from my perspective, the key is not to rely on one experiment to make a conclusion. My research group, for example, is currently working on live detection based on motility, the characteristic movement of microorganisms, which also uses water by the way, but in very small amounts. We look at how the organisms or the sediment particles move in the drop of liquid, for example. If it’s a bacterium, it has a certain kind of pattern that depends on the kind of bacteria and can be distinguished from a sediment particle because a sediment particle would move differently. With AI, we can track the movement automatically to say this is a microbe, and that is a sediment particle. We think that we can distinguish even an alien microbe from a sediment particle. That might be an interesting experiment to conduct.The point is, there are numerous ways to [search for life on Mars]. Ideally, it would be nice to have a microscope on Mars, but this poses challenges — though I think it’s getting to be about time that we use one for searching for life on other planets. But to make a long story short, we would want to have several different kinds of life-detection methods that are independent of each other, and from there, we could come up with more convincing data.Taken by the Viking 1 lander shortly after it touched down on Mars, this image is the first photograph ever taken from the surface of Mars. It was taken on July 20, 1976. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)Have you observed a shift since Viking in how scientists are looking for life on Mars? Have the methods evolved a bit or taken this into account?Yes, there are lots of different methods available now and there are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to each. Gas chromatography and [mass spectrometry] is one of the more sophisticated [methods] and would allow scientists to look at the organic compositions of samples.We could then compare to samples from Earth. For example, you would see specific patterns and peaks for certain proteins and their amino acids — these we know and could expect. You could also look for products of abiotic synthesis, the kind that happens in the beginning, before life, and would be indicative with high levels of small organic molecules. Essentially, we do have quite a few methodologies that would be really interesting to test out.In the context of this hypothesis, what specific salts or mineral compositions could be prioritized? You mentioned sodium chloride, but are there any others?Yes, you’d need to look for hygroscopic salts. Not all soils possess this property; for instance, some sulfur salts, like gypsum, are not hygroscopic as the mineral structure contains a lot of water and would not be suitable. Sodium chloride is probably the most common choice, along with potassium chloride. In my research group, we’re also looking at chlorates and perchlorates, which we’ve found to be quite effective. Chlorate (ClO₃) and perchlorate (ClO₄) are the types we’re interested in, although perchlorates can be a bit problematic for life as we know it; they can be tolerated only in certain amounts, and too much can be harmful. On the other hand, chlorates seem to work much better.One advantage of chlorates and perchlorates is that they stay liquid at much lower temperatures compared to sodium and potassium chloride. That’s significant because if the environment gets really cold, having salts that remain liquid at colder temperatures could provide a more suitable habitat for microbial life.So, while sodium chloride is a top priority, I’d also suggest considering chlorates and perchlorates. In regions like the Southern Highlands of Mars, high concentrations of chloride have been detected.Do you think this take is controversial?Yes, surely it’s controversial. In science, challenging the prevailing paradigm is always tough. Colleagues often review work from a position that reflects their existing beliefs, and egos can complicate the process as well. Ultimately, though, I believe science prevails. There isn’t a top-down approach; even the most esteemed scientists can be wrong, and we all understand that. My aim has always been to present our findings and let the scientific community engage with them as potential hypotheses.But it’s important to put out a hypothesis out to see if we can come up with a logically sound solution to it. I do not know whether there are really microbes on Mars, but I feel confident that my proposed solution could work and might reveal life. Future missions should definitely investigate this further. I might be wrong, but I could also be right — we won’t know until we try.Eventually, we will get the evidence, one way or another, and that’s good. I’m ok if I was wrong. I think either way, this was an interesting idea — even if some people don’t think so. But we’re ultimately looking to discover life, and to do so, we have to think outside the box.

Did NASA’s Viking landers accidentally kill life on Mars? Why one scientist thinks so

In 1975, NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, carrying a mission to unlock the secrets of the Red Planet. Soon, it released twin landers that drifted toward the Martian surface and eventually made history as the first American spacecraft to touch down on the world.For over six years, Viking 1 continued to orbit Mars’ Chryse Planitia region while its landers collected soil samples using robotic arms and onboard laboratories, marking a groundbreaking chapter in humanity’s exploration of the Martian environment.At the time, however, little was known about environmental conditions of the Red Planet, and the Viking life detection experiments were modeled after culturing techniques commonly used to identify microbes on Earth. These methods involved adding water and nutrients to those aforementioned soil samples, then monitoring for any signs that suggest microbes might be living in the samples. Such signals were associated with responses to the additives — essentially an influx of components needed to complete normal life cycles as we know them — and included things like growth, reproduction and the consumption of food for energy.One day, both Viking landers reported a potential positive detection of microbial activity in their soil samples, and the findings naturally sparked decades of intense debate. Had we finally found proof of life elsewhere in the universe? However, most scientists now believe the results were negative or — at best — inconclusive. They think it’s more likely that the positive readings have an alternative explanation.

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But that’s most scientists.Related: Life on Mars? 40 Years Later, Viking Lander Scientist Still Says ‘Yes’According to Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at the Technische Universität Berlin in Germany, there may be another facet to this mystery that hasn’t yet been considered: Viking may indeed have discovered life on Mars, but the water-based nature of its life-detection experiments might have unintentionally killed it.Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!In a recent commentary published in the journal Nature Astronomy, titled “We may be looking for Martian life in the wrong place,” he argues that because Mars is even drier than one of the most arid places on Earth, the Atacama Desert, where microbes obtain water through salts that draw moisture from the atmosphere, any analogous Martian life would be highly sensitive to the addition of liquid water. Even one drop too much could threaten their existence.Yet, the Viking experiments were conducted under the assumption that Martian life would require liquid water, like most life forms on Earth. Thus, Schulze-Makuch believes, the results of the experiments might be best explained not as the absence of organic life, but as the human-driven destruction of arid microbial organisms exposed to too much water.If the assumptions about organisms thriving in Mars’ hyperarid conditions are accurate, Schulze-Makuch argues that NASA should rethink its longstanding “follow the water” strategy for finding life beyond Earth. Instead, he suggests adopting a “follow the salts” approach.Space.com sat down with Schulze-Makuch to discuss this intriguing take on the Viking experiments, how the community has reacted to it, and what it might mean for life-seeking experiments going forward.The interview has been edited for length and clarity.This is the first panoramic view ever returned from the surface of Mars. This view from Camera 2 on Viking 1 shows Chryse Planitia on 20 July 1976, shortly after Viking landed. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)What sparked your interest in re-examining the Viking experiments on Mars?I’ve always been intrigued by the Viking life detection experiments. It’s unfortunate that they haven’t received more emphasis because, ultimately, they’re the only direct life detection experiments we’ve conducted on another planet. And yes, the results were confusing, but for scientists, that kind of ambiguity is fascinating — it usually signals that there’s something deeper to understand.Now, nearly 50 years later, we can reexamine those experiments with a much better grasp of Mars’ environment — its complexities — and how certain reactions could unfold there. We’ve also gained invaluable insights into extremophiles on Earth — organisms that survive in the most inhospitable conditions — and how they function. That knowledge helps us interpret the Viking data with a new perspective.Why do you think the Viking experiments might have actually encountered and inadvertently killed Martian life?I did a lot of work in the Atacama Desert, which is an analog environment to Mars. And we got some “Blues Clues” about how organisms survive there. From there, it wasn’t that difficult to put it together. I presented this idea about a year ago at a special meeting on life in the universe, hosted by the King of the Netherlands. Many European Space Agency scientists were there, and I thought afterwards I may get some backlash, but they took it surprisingly well. The science concept in this case is that salts, and organisms with the help of the salts, can pull water directly from the atmosphere. There’s also an effect where, as water is removed, there’s a sort of delay — a hysteresis — because the system resists crystallization. This means water can remain in a salt longer than expected, which is crucial because it raises the water activity on a microscopic level, making it accessible to microbes. Life is very good at taking advantage of these physical or chemical effects. There are plenty of examples in biology, which is very good at using these kinds of effects — I’d nearly call them tricks because they’re using this kind of quirky physics or chemistry.Of course, I can’t say there’s definitely an organism on Mars exploiting these effects. But Mars, almost 4 billion years ago, was so much like Earth, with abundant water. As it became drier, moving toward its current desert state, these are the kinds of adaptations I’d expect any remaining life to develop.How do organisms in Earth’s deserts survive by pulling water out of the salts? It is the same thing if you think about rice in a salt dispenser, where the rice grains are inside to keep the salt dry — otherwise it would become all clumpy. The rice grains are more hygroscopic than the salt grains, so they attract more water from the atmosphere. It’s the same thing we see in the Salars, where ancient salt lakes dried up, leaving behind salt deposits, but there is still a little moisture in the atmosphere above these deposits. Depending on the type of salt, it can attract and absorb moisture. We call this process hygroscopicity, and it allows the salt to become damp, eventually forming a brine, which is then called deliquescence.We see this even with common table salt — it can draw in enough moisture from the air to create a brine, in which certain bacteria thrive, even in fully saturated sodium chloride solutions. While more complex salts like perchlorates or chlorates are tougher environments, some organisms can tolerate fairly high concentrations. The main salt on Mars appears to be sodium chloride, which means this idea could work.(Image credit: NASA)Do you believe the assumption that life requires water hinders our understanding of extraterrestrial life and how we look for it?In general, I would agree with that — but not for Mars. Mars and Earth are so much alike, and you have a lot of the same kind of minerals, though not the same variety on Mars that Earth has because there are a lot of minerals on Earth that are formed by biology. But they are otherwise very, very similar. They are both terrestrial planets, somewhat similar in their distances away from the sun. If we expect life on Mars, we would be expecting that dependence on water as well. I think if you would look for life, for example, on Titan, where surface conditions vary greatly, then I would agree that this requirement for water would hinder our search. But for Mars itself, I don’t see a problem.How might the Viking experiments have led to a false negative result that life doesn’t exist on Mars?Imagine something similar happened to you [as a human]. For example, if there was an alien in a spaceship coming down to Earth and found you somewhere in the desert. Then they said ‘OK, look, that’s a human and it needs water,’ and puts you directly in the middle of the ocean. You wouldn’t like that, right? Even though that is what we are. We are water-filled bags, but too much water is a bad thing, and I think that’s what happened with the Viking life-detection experiments. There was one study done in the Atacama Desert where there was torrential rain and it flooded a huge area. Afterwards, the scientists found that 70-80% of the indigenous bacteria died because they couldn’t handle that much water so suddenly. This really fits into the same picture.How would you design a new experiment that would take this into account and could maybe detect these life forms?I think the most important thing is that one experiment on its own cannot allow us to make a decision. For example, one might assume that Martian organisms have exactly the same DNA as those on Earth, and so we might devise an experiment to go looking for that material. But what if it’s different? You would then have to have several different experiments to test this out and make a sure conclusion.In the case of the Viking life-detection experiments, these people were not stupid and I think the approach was right at that time, but the scientists didn’t really know anything about the Martian environment. What they were doing was very sophisticated for the time. And now, we have much better tools and much better insights and better methodologies.I think, from my perspective, the key is not to rely on one experiment to make a conclusion. My research group, for example, is currently working on live detection based on motility, the characteristic movement of microorganisms, which also uses water by the way, but in very small amounts. We look at how the organisms or the sediment particles move in the drop of liquid, for example. If it’s a bacterium, it has a certain kind of pattern that depends on the kind of bacteria and can be distinguished from a sediment particle because a sediment particle would move differently. With AI, we can track the movement automatically to say this is a microbe, and that is a sediment particle. We think that we can distinguish even an alien microbe from a sediment particle. That might be an interesting experiment to conduct.The point is, there are numerous ways to [search for life on Mars]. Ideally, it would be nice to have a microscope on Mars, but this poses challenges — though I think it’s getting to be about time that we use one for searching for life on other planets. But to make a long story short, we would want to have several different kinds of life-detection methods that are independent of each other, and from there, we could come up with more convincing data.Taken by the Viking 1 lander shortly after it touched down on Mars, this image is the first photograph ever taken from the surface of Mars. It was taken on July 20, 1976. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)Have you observed a shift since Viking in how scientists are looking for life on Mars? Have the methods evolved a bit or taken this into account?Yes, there are lots of different methods available now and there are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to each. Gas chromatography and [mass spectrometry] is one of the more sophisticated [methods] and would allow scientists to look at the organic compositions of samples.We could then compare to samples from Earth. For example, you would see specific patterns and peaks for certain proteins and their amino acids — these we know and could expect. You could also look for products of abiotic synthesis, the kind that happens in the beginning, before life, and would be indicative with high levels of small organic molecules. Essentially, we do have quite a few methodologies that would be really interesting to test out.In the context of this hypothesis, what specific salts or mineral compositions could be prioritized? You mentioned sodium chloride, but are there any others?Yes, you’d need to look for hygroscopic salts. Not all soils possess this property; for instance, some sulfur salts, like gypsum, are not hygroscopic as the mineral structure contains a lot of water and would not be suitable. Sodium chloride is probably the most common choice, along with potassium chloride. In my research group, we’re also looking at chlorates and perchlorates, which we’ve found to be quite effective. Chlorate (ClO₃) and perchlorate (ClO₄) are the types we’re interested in, although perchlorates can be a bit problematic for life as we know it; they can be tolerated only in certain amounts, and too much can be harmful. On the other hand, chlorates seem to work much better.One advantage of chlorates and perchlorates is that they stay liquid at much lower temperatures compared to sodium and potassium chloride. That’s significant because if the environment gets really cold, having salts that remain liquid at colder temperatures could provide a more suitable habitat for microbial life.So, while sodium chloride is a top priority, I’d also suggest considering chlorates and perchlorates. In regions like the Southern Highlands of Mars, high concentrations of chloride have been detected.Do you think this take is controversial?Yes, surely it’s controversial. In science, challenging the prevailing paradigm is always tough. Colleagues often review work from a position that reflects their existing beliefs, and egos can complicate the process as well. Ultimately, though, I believe science prevails. There isn’t a top-down approach; even the most esteemed scientists can be wrong, and we all understand that. My aim has always been to present our findings and let the scientific community engage with them as potential hypotheses.But it’s important to put out a hypothesis out to see if we can come up with a logically sound solution to it. I do not know whether there are really microbes on Mars, but I feel confident that my proposed solution could work and might reveal life. Future missions should definitely investigate this further. I might be wrong, but I could also be right — we won’t know until we try.Eventually, we will get the evidence, one way or another, and that’s good. I’m ok if I was wrong. I think either way, this was an interesting idea — even if some people don’t think so. But we’re ultimately looking to discover life, and to do so, we have to think outside the box.

New UK funding to support over 4,700 science and engineering postgraduate university places

The aim of this funding is to help nurture the next generation of leading researchers, enabling groundbreaking work across various fields such as engineering, biology, physical sciences and beyond, while driving UK economic growth.
The announcement was made on National Engineering Day (13 November) by the Science Secretary Peter Kyle, who said: “This £500m investment will support our vitally important higher education sector while supporting more bright students to pursue their talents and in turn deliver the life-saving drugs and clean energy alternatives of the future, that benefit all of our lives.”
The funding has been allocated to universities and prospective students who will be able to apply in the coming months, ahead of starting their studies next year.

Scientists discover atypical brain connectivity in those with alcohol use disorder

In a recent study published in Translational Psychiatry, researchers discovered distinct patterns in how brain regions communicate in individuals with alcohol use disorder compared to healthy individuals. Using advanced imaging and analytical techniques, the study found altered connections in specific brain areas related to self-control, decision-making, and reward processing. These changes, they suggest, could explain why some people develop alcohol use disorder and struggle to control their alcohol intake.The study aimed to clarify how different parts of the brain interact in alcohol use disorder. Alcohol misuse is a widespread public health issue, causing significant health and social challenges. While past studies have explored brain function in individuals with alcohol use disorder, the exact patterns of connectivity between specific brain areas remain unclear. This study focused on identifying the unique brain connectivity patterns associated with alcohol use disorder, hoping to improve diagnosis and treatment.“Our laboratory has extensively researched addiction, aiming to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying addiction and identify key biomarkers for effective treatment interventions,” said study author Xiaochu Zhang, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China.“Additionally, we have been actively involved in developing innovative therapeutic approaches for addiction management, including neurofeedback and transcranial electrical stimulation techniques. Alcohol use disorder is a significant addiction that imposes a substantial economic burden on families and society, while its treatment remains challenging. The identification of key neurobiomarkers in the management of alcohol addiction can offer crucial insights for more effective interventions. Our project is conducted within this framework.”To investigate this, researchers examined two groups: 30 men with alcohol use disorder and 32 healthy men. Each participant underwent resting-state functional MRI, a type of brain scan that measures connectivity between different brain regions while the person is at rest. The study used a method called multivariate pattern analysis, which involves machine learning to distinguish individuals with alcohol use disorder from healthy individuals based on brain activity patterns.By looking at the direction and strength of connections between regions, they aimed to identify patterns unique to alcohol use disorder. They focused on specific brain areas that past research suggested were involved in self-control, decision-making, and reward processing, including the pre-supplementary motor area, anterior cingulate cortex, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, putamen, and nucleus accumbens.The findings revealed distinct connectivity patterns in individuals with alcohol use disorder, especially in the pre-supplementary motor area, anterior cingulate cortex, putamen, and nucleus accumbens. These areas showed altered connectivity that, the researchers suggest, might contribute to the difficulties in self-control and heightened impulsivity seen in individuals with alcohol use disorder.Importantly, they found that the connection between the anterior cingulate cortex and putamen, as well as between the nucleus accumbens and pre-supplementary motor area, were linked to the severity of alcohol dependence. Individuals with more severe alcohol use disorder symptoms showed stronger or weaker connections in these areas, depending on the specific brain pathway. The analysis accurately distinguished between participants with alcohol use disorder and healthy individuals, suggesting that these connectivity patterns could be used as potential markers for diagnosing alcohol use disorder.“Our findings revealed atypical causal connectivity between cortical and subcortical brain regions in patients diagnosed with alcohol use disorder,” Zhang told PsyPost. “Furthermore, these atypical causal brain connections contribute to the correlation observed between addiction severity and behavioral measures. These findings suggest that impulsivity may serve as a significant personality trait predisposing individuals to alcohol consumption and the development of alcohol use disorder, thereby providing crucial insights for early prevention and diagnosis.”“Moreover, in future studies focusing on withdrawal and relapse prevention in patients with alcohol use disorders, medical professionals or researchers could consider integrating traditional drug therapy with innovative interventions (such as transcranial electrical stimulation) to gain valuable insights into enhancing rehabilitation outcomes by ameliorating aberrant causal connectivity between cortical-subcortical brain regions.”However, there are some limitations to consider. The study focused only on men, as male participants were more readily available in treatment settings, so the results may not apply to women with alcohol use disorder. Future research should include a more diverse sample. Additionally, many participants with alcohol use disorder also used nicotine, which could influence the brain’s connectivity patterns. While the researchers attempted to account for this, future studies could benefit from more rigorous control over smoking habits. They also suggest that examining larger brain networks and incorporating additional imaging techniques could deepen understanding of how alcohol use disorder affects the brain’s overall connectivity.The study, “Atypical effective connectivity from the frontal cortex to striatum in alcohol use disorder,” was authored by Hongwen Song, Ping Yang, Xinyue Zhang, Rui Tao, Lin Zuo, Weili Liu, Jiaxin Fu, Zhuo Kong, Rui Tang, Siyu Wu, Liangjun Pang, and Xiaochu Zhang.