Overweight/Obesity-related microstructural alterations of the fimbria-fornix in the ABCD study: The role of aerobic physical activity
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Childhood overweight/obesity has been associated with negative consequences related to brain function and may involve alterations in white matter pathways important for cognitive and emotional processing. Aerobic physical activity is a promising lifestyle factor that could restore white matter alterations. However, little is known about either regional white matter alterations in children with overweight/obesity or the effects of aerobic physical activity targeting the obesity-related brain alterations in children. Using a large-scale cross-sectional population-based dataset of US children aged 9 to 10 years (n = 8019), this study explored the associations between overweight/obesity and microstructure of limbic white matter tracts, and examined whether aerobic physical activity may reduce the overweight/obesity-related white matter alterations in children. The primary outcome measure was restriction spectrum imaging (RSI)-derived white matter microstructural integrity measures. The number of days in a week that children engaged in aerobic physical activity for at least 60 minutes per day was assessed. We found that females with overweight/obesity had lower measures of integrity of the fimbria-fornix, a major limbic-hippocampal white matter tract, than their lean peers, while this difference was not significant in males. We also found a positive relationship between the number of days of aerobic physical activity completed in a week and integrity measures of the fimbria-fornix in females with overweight/obesity. Our results provide cross-sectional evidence of sex-specific microstructural alteration in the fimbria-fornix in children with overweight/obesity and suggest that aerobic physical activity may play a role in reducing this alteration. Future work should examine the causal direction of the relationship between childhood overweight/obesity and brain alterations and evaluate potential interventions to validate the effects of aerobic physical activity on this relationship.
Source: PLoS ONE
Language: English
Subfield: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,805
Awards: G1058358382, G1436251778, G1510635755, G1586463187, G2735337927, G2998093352, G3305455594, G343603955, G3438786812, G3738900353, G4180929035, G4241744443, G469525291, G5002640097, G5976565686, G6983123888, G815084465, G9000046731, G9000061868, G9000108491, G9000113866, G9000202101, 9/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT U MICHIGAN, 17/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT UCLA, 8/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT CHLA, 6/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT OHSU, 21/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT WUSTL, 2/21 ABCD-USA CONSORTIUM: RESEARCH PROJECT SITE AT UMB
OpenAlex ID: W4383989085