Food addiction severity is associated with decreased functional connectivity and responses to palatable food pictures in brain areas involved in emotion and cognitive control.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Patients with obesity frequently report impulsivity or loss control of food intake, reflecting the dysfunction of brain regions involved in reward and cognitive control processing related to food addiction (FA). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may help to identify the cognitive processes underlying FA. In patients with obesity, we aimed at identifying (i) fMRI specific responses in brain regions involved in hedonic and motivational processes (striatum), and cognitive control (e.g. prefrontal cortex) according to FA severity; (ii) whether FA severity is related to anxiety and/or depression symptoms.

METHODS

In this prospective, observational, monocentric study, forty women with moderate or severe obesity were recruited. FA was diagnosed with the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) 2.0. Binge Eating Scale (BES), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was also completed. One fMRI session that included fMRI and resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) assessed brain responses to palatable food images and functional connectivity. Statistical analysis included general linear model analysis and multivariate parametric statistics.

RESULTS

Twenty-three (57.5 %) of the 40 included patients suffered from FA; Mean (± standard deviation) age, 36.6 ± 8.6 yr; Body mass index, 39.2 ± 2.9. In the food task condition, both low and high appetizing images activated similar brain regions, and FA severity was associated with reduced activation in the dorsal striatum and pre-central gyrus for high appetizing images (cluster: pFWE<0.05 family-wise error correction; peak: p < 0.001 uncorrected). In the resting-state condition, FA severity correlated negatively with functional connectivity (FC) between several brain regions, such as the anterior cingulate cortex and left accumbens, and positively with FC between the left amygdala and hippocampus (cluster/connection: pFDR<0.05, false discovery rate correction). FA severity was associated to higher binge eating, but not anxiety and depression symptoms.

CONCLUSION

Brain profiles of patients with obesity are related to FA severity. FA severity is associated with impaired cortico-striatal functional connectivity between brain regions involved in motivation, decision-making and inhibitory control. Interindividual variability in brain responses suggests that dedicated therapeutic strategies might be helpful for obese patients with FA.