Key result
Executive function performance in patients with obesity correlated with structural and functional neuroimaging indices in multiple brain areas, including the left precuneus and superior frontal blade.
Observational (n=17)
In patients with obesity, structural and functional neuroimaging indices correlate with executive function, suggesting associations between executive function and the incentive motivational effects of food.
Brain region-executive function correlations in obesity are hypothesis-generating; leaves open causal and therapeutic implications.
Obesity is one of the most challenging problems in human health and is recognized as an important risk factor for many chronic diseases. It remains unclear how the neural systems (e.g., the mesolimbic "reward" and the prefrontal "control" neural systems) are correlated with patients' executive function (EF), conceptualized as the integration of "cool" EF and "hot" EF. "Cool" EF refers to relatively abstract, non-affective operations such as inhibitory control and mental flexibility. "Hot" EF refers to motivationally significant affective operations such as affective decision-making. We tried to find the correlation between structural and functional neuroimaging indices and EF in obese patients. The study population comprised seventeen patients with obesity (seven males and 10 females, BMI = 37.99 ± 5.40, age = 31.82 ± 8.75 year-old) preparing to undergo bariatric surgery. We used noninvasive diffusion tensor imaging, generalized q-sampling imaging, and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural correlations between structural and functional neuroimaging indices and EF performances in patients with obesity. We reported that many brain areas are correlated to the patients' EF performances. More interestingly, some correlations may implicate the possible associations of EF and the incentive motivational effects of food. The neural correlation between the left precuneus and middle occipital gyrus and inhibitory control may suggest that patients with a better ability to detect appetitive food may have worse inhibitory control. Also, the neural correlation between the superior frontal blade and affective decision-making may suggest that patients' affective decision-making may be associated with the incentive motivational effects of food. Our results provide evidence suggesting neural correlates of EF in patients with obesity.
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Ho et al. (2018) conducted an observational in Obesity (n=17). Executive function performance was evaluated on Correlation between structural and functional neuroimaging indices and executive function performances. Executive function performance in patients with obesity correlated with structural and functional neuroimaging indices in multiple brain areas, including the left precuneus and superior frontal blade.
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