Imbalance in resting state functional connectivity is associated with eating behaviors and adiposity in children

Background and Hypothesis: Over the past 30 years, childhood obesity in the US has nearly doubled, while obesity has tripled among adolescents. Non-homeostatic eating, influenced by impulsivity and inhibition, may undermine successful long-term weight loss. We hypothesized that unhealthy eating habits and adiposity among children are associated with functional connectivity [324_TD$DIFF]between brain regions associated with [366_TD$DIFF]impulsivity, response inhibition, and reward. Methods: We analyzed resting state functional magnetic resonance images from 38 children, ages 8–13. Using seed-based resting state functional connectivity, we [327_TD$DIFF] quantified connectivity between brain regions associated with response inhibition (inferior parietal lobe [IPL]), impulsivity (frontal pole), and reward (nucleus accumbens [NAc]). We assessed the relationship of resting state functional Received: 23 October 2015 Revised: 17 December 2015 Accepted: 22 December 2015 Heliyon (2016) e00058 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2015.e00058 2405-8440/Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). connectivity [328_TD$DIFF]with adiposity, quantified by BMI z-score, [365_TD$DIFF]and eating behaviors, as measured by the Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ). We computed an imbalance measure—the difference between [FRONTAL POLE:NAC] and [IPL:NAC] functional connectivity[367_TD$DIFF]—and investigated the relationship of this imbalance with eating behaviors and adiposity. Results: As functional connectivity [368_TD$DIFF]imbalance is increasingly biased toward impulsivity, adiposity increases. Similarly, as impulsivity-biased imbalance increases, food approach behaviors increase and food avoidance behaviors decrease. Increased adiposity is associated with increased food approach behaviors and decreased food avoidance behaviors. Conclusions: In the absence of any explicit eating-related stimuli, the developing brain is primed toward food approach and away from food avoidance behavior with increasing adiposity. Imbalance in resting state functional connectivity [332_TD$DIFF]that is associated with non-homeostatic eating [333_TD$DIFF]develops during childhood, as early as 8–13 years of age. Our results indicate [334_TD$DIFF]the importance of identifying children at risk for obesity for earlier intervention. In addition to changing eating habits and physical activity, strategies that normalize neural functional connectivity [335_TD$DIFF]imbalance are needed to maintain healthy weight. Mindfulness may be one such approach as it is associated with increased response inhibition and decreased impulsivity.