Dataset Information

What Difference Does it Make? Risk-Taking Behavior in Obesity after a Loss is Associated with Decreased Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity.

ABSTRACT: Altered activity in decision-making neural circuitry may underlie the maladaptive food choices found in obesity. Here, we aimed to identify the brain regions purportedly underpinning risk-taking behavior in individuals with obesity. Twenty-three adult women with obesity and twenty-three healthy weight controls completed the Risky Gains Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This task allows participants to choose between a safe option for a small, guaranteed monetary reward and risky options with larger rewards. fMRI analyses comparing losing trials to winning trials found that participants with obesity presented decreased activity in the left anterior insula in comparison to controls (p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected). Moreover, left insula activation during losses vs. wins was negatively correlated with UPPS-P questionnaire sensation seeking scores. During safe vs. risky trials following a loss, the control group exhibited increased activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) (p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected) in comparison to the OB group. Moreover, vmPFC response in the obesity group during post-loss trials was negatively correlated with risky choices on the task overall. As a whole, our findings support that diminished tuning of the insula towards interoceptive signals may lead to a lack of input to the vmPFC when weighing the costs and benefits of risky choices.

SUBMITTER: Steward T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6832276 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

What Difference Does it Make? Risk-Taking Behavior in Obesity after a Loss is Associated with Decreased Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity.

Steward Trevor T Juaneda-Seguí Asier A Mestre-Bach Gemma G Martínez-Zalacaín Ignacio I Vilarrasa Nuria N Jiménez-Murcia Susana S Fernández-Formoso Jose A JA Veciana de Las Heras Misericordia M Custal Nuria N Virgili Nuria N Lopez-Urdiales Rafael R García-Ruiz-de-Gordejuela Amador A Menchón José M JM Soriano-Mas Carles C Fernandez-Aranda Fernando F

Journal of clinical medicine 20190927 10

Altered activity in decision-making neural circuitry may underlie the maladaptive food choices found in obesity. Here, we aimed to identify the brain regions purportedly underpinning risk-taking behavior in individuals with obesity. Twenty-three adult women with obesity and twenty-three healthy weight controls completed the Risky Gains Task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This task allows participants to choose between a safe option for a small, guaranteed monetary reward an ...[more]

PMID: 31569607

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Project description:The neural circuitry underlying mammalian reward behaviors involves several distinct nuclei throughout the brain. It is widely accepted that the midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons are critical for the reward-related behaviors. Recent studies have shown that the centromedial nucleus of the amygdala (CeMA) has a distinct role in regulating reward-related behaviors. However, the CeMA and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) interaction in reward regulation remains poorly understood. Here, we identify and dissect a GABAergic projection that originates in the CeMA and terminates in the vmPFC (VGat-CreCeMA-vmPFC) using viral-vector-mediated, cell-type-specific optogenetic techniques in mice. Pathway-specific optogenetic activation of the VGat-CreCeMA-vmPFC circuit in awake, behaving animals produced a positive, reward-like phenotype in real-time place preference and increased locomotor activity in open-field testing. In sucrose operant conditioning, the photoactivation of these terminals increased nose-poking effort with no effect on licking behavior and robustly facilitated the extinction of operant behavior. However, photoactivation of these terminals did not induce self-stimulation in the absence of an external reward. The results described here suggest that the VGat-CreCeMA-vmPFC projection acts to modulate existing reward-related behaviors.Many studies have shown that the interactions between the centromedial nucleus of the amygdala (CeMA) and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) have critical roles for emotional regulation. However, most studies have associated this circuit with fear and anxiety behaviors and emphasized top-down processing from vmPFC to CeMA. Here, we provide new evidence for bottom-up CeMA to vmPFC influence on reward-related behaviors. Although previous work implicated the CeMA in incentive salience, our results isolate the investigation to a specific CeMA GABAergic projection to the vmPFC. This long-range GABAergic interaction between amygdala and frontal cortex adds a new dimension to the complex regulation of reward-related behaviors.

Dataset Information

What Difference Does it Make? Risk-Taking Behavior in Obesity after a Loss is Associated with Decreased Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity.

Publications

What Difference Does it Make? Risk-Taking Behavior in Obesity after a Loss is Associated with Decreased Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity.

Similar Datasets

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