Pubertal Development and Body Mass Index are associated with Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activation in Response to Unhealthy Food Cues

Unhealthy food cues are omnipresent and promote overconsumption. Although childhood obesity rates are increasing, there is no strict regulation of the marketing of unhealthy foods towards children. This is problematic since children’s brains, especially areas important for cognitive control, do not mature until their early 20s. It is not known in how far the brain response to unhealthy food cues varies with body mass index and age. To investigate this, 168 children (10-17 y; 71 prepubertal children, 97 pubertal children) and 182 adults (30-67 y) from the European IDEFICS cohort were scanned with fMRI while viewing pictures of healthy and unhealthy foods. Pubertal children exhibited lower activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) compared to adults when exposed to unhealthy food cues. Across all age groups, individuals with higher body mass demonstrated reduced activation in the middle cingulum in response to unhealthy food stimuli. Lastly, the relation between body mass index and brain activation in response to unhealthy compared with healthy food stimuli varied with development: in prepubertal children, higher body mass index was correlated with decreased activation in right anterior insula and right dlPFC, whereas no such relationship was observed in pubertal children or adults. These findings suggest that pubertal children and prepubertal children with higher body mass index may be particularly vulnerable to unhealthy food cues. In this light, the lack of regulation regarding unhealthy food marketing targeted at is concerning, especially considering the global increase in obesity rates.