Intrinsic brain subsystem associated with dietary restraint, disinhibition and hunger: an fMRI study

Abstract

Eating behaviors are closely related to body weight, and eating traits are depicted in three dimensions: dietary restraint, disinhibition, and hunger. The current study aims to explore whether these aspects of eating behaviors are related to intrinsic brain activation, and to further investigate the relationship between the brain activation relating to these eating traits and body weight, as well as the link between function connectivity (FC) of the correlative brain regions and body weight. Our results demonstrated positive associations between dietary restraint and baseline activation of the frontal and the temporal regions (i.e., food reward encoding) and the limbic regions (i.e., homeostatic control, including the hypothalamus). Disinhibition was positively associated with the activation of the frontal motivational system (i.e., OFC) and the premotor cortex. Hunger was positively related to extensive activations in the prefrontal, temporal, and limbic, as well as in the cerebellum. Within the brain regions relating to dietary restraint, weight status was negatively correlated with FC of the left middle temporal gyrus and left inferior temporal gyrus, and was positively associated with the FC of regions in the anterior temporal gyrus and fusiform visual cortex. Weight status was positively associated with the FC within regions in the prefrontal motor cortex and the right ACC serving inhibition, and was negatively related with the FC of regions in the frontal cortical-basal ganglia-thalamic circuits responding to hunger control. Our data depicted an association between intrinsic brain activation and dietary restraint, disinhibition, and hunger, and presented the links of their activations and FCs with weight status.

Sex Commonalities and Differences in Obesity‐Related Alterations in Intrinsic Brain Activity and Connectivity

“…Another key region in the central control of eating behaviors is the amygdala which is closely connected to key homeostatic and reward regions such as the hypothalamus, nucleus of the solitary tract, ventral tegmental area, NAcc, and parabrachial nucleus ( 42 ). The amygdala is also connected with striatal and sensorimotor cortical regions, including the postcentral gyrus, precentral gyrus, and supplementary motor area ( 11 , 15 , 43 ), which have been associated with disinhibited eating ( 44 ). Together, these regions play important roles in the regulation of feeding behaviors and satiation ( 45 ).…”

DRD2: Bridging the Genome and Ingestive Behavior

“…Specifically, working memory and cognitive flexibility act as opposing influences to support the “on-line” stabilization of task-relevant representations while enabling the flexible updating of those representations in response to novel information [41]. Deficits in working memory and cognitive flexibility are in turn associated with cognitive inflexibility, impulsivity and compulsivity, all of which are associated with addictive like behaviors including overeating [42–46]. …”

Dopamine Adaptations as a Common Pathway for Neurocognitive Impairment in Diabetes and Obesity: A Neuropsychological Perspective

“…For example, the dopaminergic fronto-striatal loop plays a well-known role in working memory, cognitive flexibility, reinforcement learning, and incentive motivation (Frank and Fossella, 2011). It is also critical for response inhibition, the failure of which is associated with addictive like behaviors including overeating (Lokken et al, 2009; Maayan et al, 2011; Lee et al, 2013; Guo et al, 2014; Zhao et al, 2016). Finally, a role for DA in memory via a projection from the ventral tegmental area to the hippocampus has been described (Shohamy and Adcock, 2010).…”