Body mass correlates inversely with inhibitory control in response to food among adolescent girls: An fMRI study

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.05.059

NeuroImage

Volume 52, Issue 4, 1 October 2010, Pages 1696-1703

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.05.059 Get rights and content

Abstract

Self-report and behavioral data suggest that impulsivity may contribute to the development and maintenance of obesity. Neuroimaging studies implicate a widespread neural network in inhibitory control and suggest that impulsive individuals show hypoactivity in these regions during tasks requiring response inhibition. Yet, research has not directly tested whether body mass correlates inversely with activation of these regions during response inhibition tasks. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural activations during a food-specific go/no-go task in adolescent girls ranging from lean to obese. When required to inhibit prepotent responses to appetizing food, body mass index (BMI) correlated with response inhibition at both the behavioral and neural levels, with more overweight adolescents showing greater behavioral evidence of impulsivity as well as reduced activation of frontal inhibitory regions, including superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex, than leaner individuals. As well, activation in food reward regions (e.g., temporal operculum/insula) in response to food images correlated positively with BMI. Results suggest that hypofunctioning of inhibitory control regions and increased response of food reward regions are related to elevated weight.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 39 adolescent girls (M age = 15.7; SD = 0.93); 2% Asian/Pacific Islanders, 2% African Americans, 86% European Americans, 5% Native Americans, and 5% mixed racial heritage. Participants from a larger study of female high school students who appeared to meet the inclusion criteria for the present imaging study were asked if they were interested in participating in a study on the neural response to presentation of food. Those who reported binge eating or compensatory behaviors in the

Behavioral data

Median reaction time for go trials was 651 ms (SD 140 ms). Median reaction time for no-go trials that were incorrectly responded to was 588 ms (SD 261 ms). The mean rate of commission errors was 11.3% (SD 13.5) and the mean rate of omission errors was 2.5% (SD 4.5). Median reaction time to go trials was negatively correlated with baseline BMI (N = 35, r_s = −0.54, p = 0.001), such that subjects with higher BMI scores showed significantly faster reaction times (Fig. 1). Median reaction time to all food

Discussion

In the current study, we used a food-specific go/no-go task to investigate behavioral and neural correlates of response inhibition to appetizing food in adolescent girls who ranged from lean to obese. Behaviorally, participants with higher BMI scores responded significantly more quickly to go food stimuli and made a significantly greater number of commission errors, failing to inhibit their responses to the images of desserts. Results suggests that participants with higher BMIs are more willing

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Body mass correlates inversely with inhibitory control in response to food among adolescent girls: An fMRI study

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

Behavioral data

Discussion

Biol. Psychiatry

Addict. Behav.

Appetite

Appetite

Appetite

NeuroImage

Neuropsychologia

NeuroImage

Cogn. Brain Res.

NeuroImage

Eat. Behav.

Appetite

Trends Cogn. Sci.

NeuroImage

NeuroImage

NeuroImage

Neuropsychologia

Neuron

NeuroImage

Neuroimage

Neuropsychologia

NeuroImage

Negative correlation between right prefrontal activity during response inhibition and impulsiveness: a fMRI study

Eur. Arch. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci.

Characterization of the decision-making deficit of patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions

Brain

Individual differences in reward drive predict neural responses to images of foods

Journal of Neuroscience