Modification of EEG functional connectivity and EEG power spectra in overweight and obese patients with food addiction: An eLORETA study

Abstract

We evaluated the modifications of electroencephalographic (EEG) power spectra and EEG connectivity in overweight and obese patients with elevated food addiction (FA) symptoms. Fourteen overweight and obese patients (3 men and 11 women) with three or more FA symptoms and fourteen overweight and obese patients (3 men and 11 women) with two or less FA symptoms were included in the study. EEG was recorded during three different conditions: 1) five minutes resting state (RS), 2) five minutes resting state after a single taste of a chocolate milkshake (ML-RS), and 3) five minutes resting state after a single taste of control neutral solution (N-RS). EEG analyses were conducted by means of the exact Low Resolution Electric Tomography software (eLORETA). Significant modification was observed only in the ML-RS condition. Compared to controls, patients with three or more FA symptoms showed an increase of delta power in the right middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann Area [BA] 8) and in the right precentral gyrus (BA 9), and theta power in the right insula (BA 13) and in the right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47). Furthermore, compared to controls, patients with three or more FA symptoms showed an increase of functional connectivity in fronto-parietal areas in both the theta and alpha band. The increase of functional connectivity was also positively associated with the number of FA symptoms. Taken together, our results show that FA has similar neurophysiological correlates of other forms of substance-related and addictive disorders suggesting similar psychopathological mechanisms.

Food addiction and associations with mental health symptoms: a systematic review with meta‐analysis

“…The increasing number of published studies that investigate FA do so in conjunction with other formally recognised mental health conditions, such as depression and related symptoms (20) . Indeed, epidemiological research indicates that a clustering of comorbidities is present in people reporting depression, such that the presence of depression, particularly in young adult males, is associated with twice the risk of obesity, smoking, spending more time in sedentary activities, and behaviours associated with drug and alcohol use relative to nondepressed young adults (26) .…”

Increased Alpha Band Functional Connectivity Following the Quadrato Motor Training: A Longitudinal Study

“…Using exact low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (eLORETA) software allows to considerably removing this confounding factor (Pascual-Marqui, 2007). For this reason, in the recent years this software has been used to evaluate non-invasive functional connectivity measures, as respect with various EEG bands in different task and different fields of investigations both in psychological and neuroscientific studies such as the ones concerning: major depression (Olbrich et al, 2014), cognitive decline (Vecchio et al, 2014), food-addiction (Imperatori et al, 2015) and mindfulness meditation (Lehmann et al, 2012). …”

Emotion Regulation and Mentalization in People at Risk for Food Addiction

“…[2][3][4][6][7][8][9] Moreover, it has been observed that addictive eating symptoms may be associated with neural activation of brain regions involved in drug addiction (i.e., hippocampus, amygdala, insula, caudate) in response to anticipated intake of palatable food and to the retrieval of the sensory properties of favorite foods. [10][11][12] Gearhardt and colleagues 13 proposed operational criteria for a Food Addiction (FA) diagnosis according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for substance dependence. 14 These criteria were used to devise the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), an instrument assessing diagnosis and severity of FA.…”

“…Furthermore, this procedure has previously been used to investigate the neurophysiological correlates of FA 12 6 with low FA symptoms) have a different pattern of activation of brain regions in response to the intake of palatable foods.…”