1Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA.
Int J Neurosci. 2014 Jan;124(1):49-55. doi: 10.3109/00207454.2013.817408. Epub 2013 Jul 19.
Obesity is associated with cognitive dysfunction in children and adolescents, although the mechanisms underlying these deficits remain unclear. This study examined the associations between body mass index (BMI) and regional gray matter volume and white matter integrity in 120 healthy children and adolescents (6-18 years of age) who underwent magnetic resonance and diffusion tensor imaging. Bonferroni-corrected partial correlation analyses controlling for demographic and clinical characteristics revealed significant inverse associations between demographically standardized BMI values and gray matter volume of frontal (r = -0.31) and limbic (r = -0.35) brain regions. No such pattern emerged for fractional anisotropy of white matter tracts. Subsequent hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the relationship between standardized BMI and structural gray and white matter brain indices did not vary with age. These findings suggest that obesity in children and adolescents is associated with decreased volume of frontal and limbic cerebral gray matter regions. Further research is much needed to better elucidate possible brain-based mechanisms for cognitive dysfunction associated with obesity.
肥胖与儿童和青少年的认知功能障碍有关，尽管这些缺陷的潜在机制尚不清楚。本研究通过磁共振和弥散张量成像检查了 120 名健康儿童和青少年（6-18 岁）的体重指数（BMI）与局部灰质体积和白质完整性之间的相关性。对人口统计学和临床特征进行了 Bonferroni 校正的部分相关分析，结果显示，人口统计学标准化 BMI 值与额（r = -0.31）和边缘（r = -0.35）脑区的灰质体积呈显著负相关。白质束的各向异性分数没有出现这种模式。随后的分层回归分析表明，标准化 BMI 与结构灰质和白质脑指数之间的关系不受年龄影响。这些发现表明，儿童和青少年肥胖与额和边缘大脑灰质区域的体积减少有关。为了更好地阐明与肥胖相关的认知功能障碍的可能基于大脑的机制，还需要进一步的研究。
