How images of food become cravingly salient in obesity
Authors' conclusion
These findings reveal that, in obesity, food-related visual stimuli become cravingly salient through an imbalanced connectivity of the reward system with sensory-specific regions and the frontal cortex involved in cognitive control.
Study context
- Population
- Normal-weight individuals and individuals with obesity
- Comparison
- Individuals with obesity vs normal-weight individuals
- Outcome
- Functional connectivity of the midbrain VTA with the rest of the brain, and its association with food-related bias and craving
Methodological detailsresting-state fMRI, ventral tegmental area (VTA) seed-based functional connectivity
- Resting-state fMRI
- VTA seed-based functional connectivity
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
VTA functional connectivity
- Obesity: hyper-connectivity of the VTA with part of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (specialized for food images)
- Obesity: hypo-connectivity of the VTA with the left inferior frontal gyrus (cognitive control)
- VTA-ventral occipitotemporal cortex connectivity positively associated with food craving and food-related bias
- VTA-inferior frontal gyrus connectivity inversely associated with food craving and food-related bias
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Original publication
How images of food become cravingly salient in obesity. Obesity (Silver Spring). Published 22 August 2023. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →