Black William R, Lepping Rebecca J, Bruce Amanda S, Powell Joshua N, Bruce Jared M, Martin Laura E, Davis Ann M, Brooks William M, Savage Cary R, Simmons W Kyle
Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, USA.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2014 Jul;22(7):1590-3. doi: 10.1002/oby.20741. Epub 2014 Mar 25.
Obese children demonstrate less activation in prefrontal regions associated with self-control and inhibition when presented with food cues and advertisements. This study evaluates the differences between obese and healthy weight children in resting-state functional connectivity to these brain regions.
Seed regions in bilateral middle frontal gyri were chosen based on previous task-based analysis showing differences between obese and healthy weight children's responses to food-associated stimuli. Functional connectivity to these seed regions was measured in resting-state scans collected in obese and lean children undergoing fMRI.
Obese children exhibited greater resting-state functional connectivity than healthy weight children between the left middle frontal gyrus and reward-related regions in the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, as well as the left lateral OFC.
Previously published results demonstrated that obese children exhibit less activity in brain regions associated with self-control when viewing motivationally salient food advertisements. Here, it is shown that the obese children also have tonically greater input to these self-control regions from reward neurocircuitry. The greater functional connectivity between reward and self-control regions, in conjunction with weaker activation of self-control neurocircuitry, may render these children more susceptible to food advertisements, placing them at elevated risk for over-feeding and obesity.
肥胖儿童在面对食物线索和广告时，与自我控制和抑制相关的前额叶区域激活较少。本研究评估肥胖儿童和健康体重儿童在静息状态下与这些脑区功能连接的差异。
根据先前基于任务的分析，选择双侧额中回的种子区域，该分析显示肥胖儿童和健康体重儿童对食物相关刺激的反应存在差异。在接受功能磁共振成像（fMRI）的肥胖和瘦儿童的静息状态扫描中，测量与这些种子区域的功能连接。
与健康体重儿童相比，肥胖儿童在左侧额中回与左侧腹内侧前额叶皮质以及左侧外侧眶额皮质中与奖赏相关的区域之间表现出更强的静息状态功能连接。
先前发表的结果表明，肥胖儿童在观看具有动机显著性的食物广告时，与自我控制相关的脑区活动较少。在此研究中发现，肥胖儿童从奖赏神经回路到这些自我控制区域的输入也持续更强。奖赏区域和自我控制区域之间更强的功能连接，再加上自我控制神经回路较弱的激活，可能使这些儿童更容易受到食物广告的影响，使他们面临过度喂养和肥胖的风险增加。
