Functional connectivity in obesity during reward processing

Obesity is a health problem that has become a major focus of attention in recent years. There is growing evidence of an association between obesity and differences in reward processing. However, it is not known at present whether these differences are linked exclusively to food, or whether they can be detected in other rewarding stimuli. We compared responses to food, rewarding non-food and neutral pictures in 18 young adults with obesity and 19 normal-weight subjects using independent component analysis. Both groups modulated task-related activity in a plausible way. However, in response to both food and non-food rewarding stimuli, participants with obesity showed weaker connectivity in a network involving activation of frontal and occipital areas and deactivation of the posterior part of the default mode network. In addition, obesity was related with weaker activation of the default mode network and deactivation of frontal and occipital areas while viewing neutral stimuli. Together, our findings suggest that obesity is related to a different allocation of cognitive resources in a fronto-occipital network and in the default mode network.