Neural Circuits for Cognitive Appetite Control in Healthy and Obese Individuals: An fMRI Study

Tuulari, Jetro J.; Karlsson, Henry K.; Hirvonen, Jussi; Nuutila, Pirjo; Nummenmaa, Lauri

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0116640

Cited by 87 publications

(73 citation statements)

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“…While significant work has examined the brain's response to taste and visual stimuli in individuals with obesity, [29][30][31][32][33][34] no study to date has investigated the relationship between laboratory-observed, hedonically motivated eating behaviour and intrinsic neuronal activity and connectivity in young children without obesity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Eating in the absence of hunger in young children is related to brain reward network hyperactivity and reduced functional connectivity in executive control networks

et al. 2019

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Summary Background Recent work has implicated disinhibited eating behaviours (DEB) as a potential pathway toward obesity development in children. However, the underlying neurobiology of disinhibited eating behaviours in young, healthy weight children, prior to obesity development, remains unknown. Objectives This study tested the relationship between DEB and intrinsic neuronal activity and connectivity in young children without obesity. Methods Brain networks implicated in overeating including reward, salience and executive control networks, and the default mode network were investigated. DEB was measured by the eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) paradigm with postlunch kilocalories consumed from highly palatable foods (EAH kcal) used as the predictor. Intrinsic neuronal activity within and connectivity between specified networks were measured via resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Eighteen typically developing children (mean age = 5.8 years) were included. Results EAH kcal was positively associated with activity of the nucleus accumbens, a major reward network hub (P < 0.05, corrected). EAH kcal was negatively associated with intrinsic prefrontal cortex connectivity to the striatum (P < 0.01, corrected). Conclusions These results suggest that neural aspects of DEB are detectable in young children without obesity, providing a potential tool to better understand the development of obesity in this population.

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confidence: 99%

Eating in the absence of hunger in young children is related to brain reward network hyperactivity and reduced functional connectivity in executive control networks

et al. 2019

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“…In fMRI studies with humans, increased activation in the occipital cortex has been demonstrated for high calorie or high fat food images, suggesting increased attention to these stimuli [177, 178]. Parietal cortex has been observed to activate during “appetite control” (imagined restraint from eating) in humans [179]. In another study, as participants were trained to select less subjectively valued or desired food images, they demonstrated decreased activation in the parietal cortices [180], suggesting a change in attention with training.…”

Section: Attention Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The prefrontal cortex composes much of the cognitive control network, particularly the cingulate cortex, inferior frontal cortex, pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) [184]. Several studies have demonstrated impaired inhibitory control in obese humans and a link of impaired control to future weight gain in normal weight individuals [4, 5, 179, 185-195]. Poorer inhibitory control, even on non-food-related tasks, has been observed to correlate with high calorie food intake [5] and a resistance to losing weight [195].…”

Section: Cognitive Control Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increased DLPFC activation was observed when participants displayed self-restraint in unhealthy food choices, suggesting again that the DLPFC may evaluate food choices [197]. When asked to imagine inhibiting themselves from eating foods while looking at food images, individuals activated areas of the cognitive control network, including the cingulate cortex, pre-SMA, and DLPFC [179]. Investigators have theorized that impaired cognitive control may unleash increased reward responses to food cues and thus overeating [198, 199] (Figure 7).…”

Section: Cognitive Control Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Central nervous system regulation of eating: Insights from human brain imaging

2016

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Appetite and body weight regulation are controlled by the central nervous system (CNS) in a rather complicated manner. The human brain plays a central role in integrating internal and external inputs to modulate energy homeostasis. Although homeostatic control by the hypothalamus is currently considered to be primarily responsible for controlling appetite, most of the available evidence derives from experiments in rodents, and the role of this system in regulating appetite in states of hunger/starvation and in the pathogenesis of overeating/obesity remains to be fully elucidated in humans. Further, cognitive and affective processes have been implicated in the dysregulation of eating behavior in humans, but their exact relative contributions as well as the respective underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We briefly review each of these systems here and present the current state of research in an attempt to update clinicians and clinical researchers alike on the status and future directions of obesity research.

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“…Studies have shown that the MTG shows greater activation in response to food images in a sated state than in a hungry state (35), in the viewing of nonfood images than of food images when hungry (36), and in the viewing of low-calorie-food images than of high-calorie-food images (33), thereby suggesting that MTG activation is involved in some aspect of control over food intake. The precuneus appears to play a role in many functions, but it has been argued that this region is related to self-referential processes and appetite control (37). The precuneus has been further implicated in the valuation of the benefits of not eating compared with eating high-calorie palatable foods (38).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Elevated reward response to receipt of palatable food predicts future weight variability in healthy-weight adolescents

Winter

Yokum

Stice

et al. 2017

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

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Background: Both an elevated brain-reward-region response to palatable food and elevated weight variability have been shown to predict future weight gain. Objective: We examined whether the brain-reward response to food is related to future weight variability. Design: A total of 162 healthy-weight adolescents, who were aged 14-18 y at baseline, were enrolled in the study and were assessed annually over a 3-y follow-up period with 127 participants completing the final 3-y follow-up assessment. With the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested whether the neural responses to a cue that signaled an impending milkshake receipt and the receipt of the milkshake predicted weight variability over the follow-up period. Weight variability was modeled with a root mean squared error method to reflect fluctuations in weight independent of the net weight change. Results: Elevated activation in the medial prefrontal cortex and supplementary motor area, cingulate gyrus, cuneus and occipital gyrus, and insula in response to milkshake receipt predicted greater weight variability. Greater activation in the precuneus and middle temporal gyrus predicted lower weight variability. Conclusions: From our study data, we suggest that the elevated activation of reward and emotional-regulation brain regions (medial prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, and insula) and lower activation in self-reference regions (precuneus) in response to milkshake receipt predict weight variability over 3 y of follow-up. The fact that the reward response in the current study emerged in response to high-calorie palatable food receipt suggests that weight variability may be a measure of propensity periods of a positive energy balance and should be examined in addition to measures of the net weight change. With our collective results, we suggest that weight variability and its brain correlates should be added to other variables that are predictive of weight gain to inform the design of obesity-preventive programs in adolescents. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01807572.Am J Clin Nutr 2017;105:781-9.

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Neural Circuits for Cognitive Appetite Control in Healthy and Obese Individuals: An fMRI Study

Cited by 87 publications

References 32 publications

Eating in the absence of hunger in young children is related to brain reward network hyperactivity and reduced functional connectivity in executive control networks

Eating in the absence of hunger in young children is related to brain reward network hyperactivity and reduced functional connectivity in executive control networks

Central nervous system regulation of eating: Insights from human brain imaging

Elevated reward response to receipt of palatable food predicts future weight variability in healthy-weight adolescents

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