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Differential activation of the frontal pole to high vs low calorie foods: The neural basis of food preference in Anorexia Nervosa?

ABSTRACT: Neuroimaging studies in anorexia nervosa (AN) suggest that altered food reward processing may result from dysfunction in both limbic reward and cortical control centers of the brain. This fMRI study aimed to index the neural correlates of food reward in a subsample of individuals with restrictive AN: twelve currently ill, fourteen recovered individuals and sixteen healthy controls. Participants were shown pictures of high and low-calorie foods and asked to evaluate how much they wanted to eat each one following a four hour fast. Whole-brain task-activated analysis was followed by psychophysiological interaction analysis (PPI) of the amygdala and caudate. In the AN group, we observed a differential pattern of activation in the lateral frontal pole: increasing following presentation of high-calorie stimuli and decreasing in during presentation of low-calorie food pictures, the opposite of which was seen in the healthy control (HC) group. In addition, decreased activation to food pictures was observed in somatosensory regions in the AN group. PPI analyses suggested hypo-connectivity in reward pathways, and between the caudate and both somatosensory and visual processing regions in the AN group. No significant between-group differences were observed between the recovered group and the currently ill and healthy controls in the PPI analysis. Taken together, these findings further our understanding of the neural processes which may underpin the avoidance of high-calorie foods in those with AN and might exacerbate the development of compulsive weight-loss behavior, despite emaciation.

SUBMITTER: Scaife JC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5146322 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Differential activation of the frontal pole to high vs low calorie foods: The neural basis of food preference in Anorexia Nervosa?

Scaife Jessica C JC Godier Lauren R LR Reinecke Andrea A Harmer Catherine J CJ Park Rebecca J RJ

Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging 20161018

Neuroimaging studies in anorexia nervosa (AN) suggest that altered food reward processing may result from dysfunction in both limbic reward and cortical control centers of the brain. This fMRI study aimed to index the neural correlates of food reward in a subsample of individuals with restrictive AN: twelve currently ill, fourteen recovered individuals and sixteen healthy controls. Participants were shown pictures of high and low-calorie foods and asked to evaluate how much they wanted to eat ea ...[more]

PMID: 27866012

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Project description:Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe mental disorder characterized by food restriction and weight loss. This study aimed to test the model posed by Brooks et al. (2012a,b) that women suffering from chronic AN show decreased food-cue processing activity in brain regions associated with energy balance and food reward (bottom-up; BU) and increased activity in brain regions associated with cognitive control (top-down; TD) when compared with long-term recovered AN (REC) and healthy controls (HC). Three groups of women, 15 AN (mean illness duration 7.8?±?4.1 years), 14 REC (mean duration of recovery 4.7?±?2.7?years) and 15 HC viewed alternating blocks of food and non-food images preceded by a short instruction during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), after fasting overnight. Functional region of interests (fROIs) were defined in BU (e.g., striatum, hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, and cerebellum), TD (e.g., medial and lateral prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate), the insula, and visual processing areas (VPA). Food-cue processing activation was extracted from all fROIs and compared between the groups. In addition, functional connectivity between the fROIs was examined by modular partitioning of the correlation matrix of all fROIs. We could not confirm the hypothesis that BU areas are activated to a lesser extent in AN upon visual processing of food images. Among the BU areas the caudate showed higher activation in both patient groups compared to HC. In accordance with Brooks et al.'s model, we did find evidence for increased TD control in AN and REC. The functional connectivity analysis yielded two clusters in HC and REC, but three clusters in AN. In HC, fROIs across BU, TD, and VPA areas clustered; in AN, one cluster span across BU, TD, and insula; one across BU, TD, and VPA areas; and one was confined to the VPA network. In REC, BU, TD, and VPA or VPA and insula clustered. In conclusion, despite weight recovery, neural processing of food cues is also altered in recovered AN patients.

Dataset Information

Differential activation of the frontal pole to high vs low calorie foods: The neural basis of food preference in Anorexia Nervosa?

Publications

Differential activation of the frontal pole to high vs low calorie foods: The neural basis of food preference in Anorexia Nervosa?

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