Neuroimaging and obesity: current knowledge and future directions
Year: 2011
Type: review
Abstract: Neuroimaging is becoming increasingly common in obesity research as investigators try to understand the neurological underpinnings of appetite and body weight in humans. Positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies examining responses to food intake and food cues, dopamine function and brain volume in lean vs. obese individuals are now beginning to coalesce in identifying irregularities in a range of regions implicated in reward (e.g. striatum, orbitofrontal cortex, insula), emotion and memory (e.g. amygdala, hippocampus), homeostatic regulation of intake (e.g. hypothalamus), sensory and motor processing (e.g. insula, precentral gyrus), and cognitive control and attention (e.g. prefrontal cortex, cingulate). Studies of weight change in children and adolescents, and those at high genetic risk for obesity, promise to illuminate causal processes. Studies examining specific eating behaviours (e.g. external eating, emotional eating, dietary restraint) are teaching us about the distinct neural networks that drive components of appetite, and contribute to the phenotype of body weight. Finally, innovative investigations of appetite-related hormones, including studies of abnormalities (e.g. leptin deficiency) and interventions (e.g. leptin replacement, bariatric surgery), are shedding light on the interactive relationship between gut and brain. The dynamic distributed vulnerability model of eating behaviour in obesity that we propose has scientific and practical implications.
Source: Obesity Reviews
Institutions: St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia University
Language: English
Subfield: Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1798723266, fMRI and Ghrelin in Obesity and Binge Eating Disorder, Appetite Hormones in Binge Eating Disorder, Brain Activation responses in adolescents with genetic predisposition to obesity, Functional Brain Imaging and Appetite-Related Hormones Pre and Post Obesity Surge, Clinical and Translational Science Award, New York Obesity Research Center
OpenAlex ID: W1930353164