Division of Digestive Diseases, G Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Digestive System Research Unit, University Hospital Vall d'Hebron, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas (Ciberehd), Departament de Medicina, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Spain.
Nutrients. 2020 Jun 1;12(6):1627. doi: 10.3390/nu12061627.
The neural mechanisms underlying subjective responses to meal ingestion remain incompletely understood. We previously showed in healthy men an increase in thalamocortical, and a decrease in insular-cortical connectivity in response to a palatable meal. As sex is increasingly recognized as an important biological variable, we aimed to evaluate sex differences and commonalities in the impact of a well-liked meal on thalamic and anterior insular connectivity in healthy individuals. Participants (20 women and 20 age-matched men) underwent resting-state magnetic resonance imaging (rsMRI) before and after ingesting a palatable meal. In general, the insula showed extensive postprandial reductions in connectivity with sensorimotor and prefrontal cortices, while the thalamus showed increases in connectivity with insular, frontal, and occipital cortices, in both women and men. However, reductions in insular connectivity were more prominent in men, and were related to changes in meal-related sensations (satiety and digestive well-being) in men only. In contrast, increases in thalamic connectivity were more prominent in women, and were related to changes in satiety and digestive well-being in women only. These results suggest that brain imaging may provide objective and sex-specific biomarkers of the subjective feelings associated with meal ingestion.
进食后主观反应的神经机制仍不完全清楚。我们之前在健康男性中发现，进食美味食物会增加丘脑皮质连接，减少脑岛皮质连接。由于性别越来越被认为是一个重要的生物学变量，我们旨在评估健康个体中一顿喜欢的食物对丘脑和前脑岛连接的影响在性别上的差异和共性。参与者（20 名女性和 20 名年龄匹配的男性）在进食美味食物前后接受了静息态磁共振成像（rsMRI）。一般来说，进食后，脑岛与感觉运动和前额叶皮质的连接广泛减少，而丘脑与脑岛、额叶和枕叶皮质的连接增加，女性和男性均如此。然而，男性脑岛连接的减少更为明显，并且与男性的与进食相关的感觉变化（饱腹感和消化舒适度）有关。相比之下，女性丘脑连接的增加更为明显，并且与女性的饱腹感和消化舒适度变化有关。这些结果表明，脑成像可能为与进食相关的主观感受提供客观的、性别特异性的生物标志物。
