Han Xiao-Dong, Zhang Hong-Wei, Xu Ting, Liu Lin, Cai Hui-Ting, Liu Zi-Qi, Li Qing, Zheng Hui, Xu Tao, Yuan Ti-Fei
Department of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai, China.
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2022 May 10;13:873953. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.873953. eCollection 2022.
Impulsiveness is a stable personal characteristic that contributes to obesity and may interact with it. Specifically, obesity is caused by unrestrained impulse eating that is not consciously controlled and leads to a hormonal imbalance that also can impair impulse control. However, the mechanism of this relationship is unclear. In our study, 35 obese individuals (body mass index, BMI > 28) were recruited and matched with 31 healthy controls (BMI < 24) in age and education level. All the participants underwent a resting-state fMRI and completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11. The results showed that patients with obesity had a significantly lower fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and higher fALFF in the left fusiform cortex. In addition, non-planning impulsiveness was positively correlated with BMI. Importantly, we found that the right dlPFC completely mediated the relationship between non-planning impulsiveness and BMI. Our findings suggest that impulsivity is statistically more likely to precede obesity than to precede impulsivity and contributes to obesity by downregulating spontaneous activity in the dlPFC. This suggests that the dlPFC, which is associated with executive control, may be able a potential target for treating obesity.
冲动性是一种稳定的个人特质，它会导致肥胖，并且可能与肥胖相互作用。具体而言，肥胖是由无意识控制的无节制冲动进食引起的，这种进食会导致激素失衡，进而也会损害冲动控制。然而，这种关系的机制尚不清楚。在我们的研究中，招募了35名肥胖个体（体重指数，BMI>28），并将其与31名年龄和教育水平相匹配的健康对照者（BMI<24）进行比较。所有参与者都接受了静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）检查，并完成了巴雷特冲动性量表-11。结果显示，肥胖患者双侧背外侧前额叶皮层（dlPFC）的低频波动分数振幅（fALFF）显著降低，而左侧梭状回的fALFF则较高。此外，非计划性冲动与BMI呈正相关。重要的是，我们发现右侧dlPFC完全介导了非计划性冲动与BMI之间的关系。我们的研究结果表明，从统计学角度来看，冲动性在肥胖之前出现的可能性比在冲动性之前出现肥胖的可能性更大，并且通过下调dlPFC的自发活动导致肥胖。这表明，与执行控制相关的dlPFC可能是治疗肥胖的一个潜在靶点。
