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Neural processing of food cues in pre-pubertal children

S Luo1,2, J Alves1,2, K Hardy2

  • 1Division of Endocrinology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Pediatric Obesity
|July 19, 2018
PubMed

Insights

Child brain responses to food cues differ by body fat and sex. Higher body fat was linked to less reactivity in reward areas, while boys showed more reactivity in memory and visual areas.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Child Development
  • Neuroimaging

Background:

  • Most neuroimaging studies on reward pathways focus on adults.
  • Limited research exists on how children's brains respond to food cues.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate brain responses to visual food cues in pre-pubertal children.
  • To explore the relationship between these brain responses, adiposity, and sex.

Main Methods:

  • Neuroimaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activity in 53 pre-pubertal children (8.18 ± 0.66 years) after an overnight fast.
  • Participants viewed palatable food versus non-food cues.
  • Whole-brain analysis examined food cue reactivity, adiposity, and sex differences.

Main Results:

  • Children showed greater brain activity to food cues in reward (orbital frontal cortex, striatum), taste (insula), appetite (hypothalamus), emotion (amygdala), memory (hippocampus), visual (occipital cortex), and attention (parietal cortex) regions.
  • Increased percent body fat was negatively associated with food cue reactivity in medial and lateral orbital frontal cortex.
  • Boys exhibited higher food cue reactivity than girls in the right hippocampus and visual cortex.

Conclusions:

  • Body fat and sex significantly moderate brain responses to food cues in children.
  • Findings highlight the early influence of adiposity and sex on neural reward processing related to food.
Abstract

Keywords:
Adipositychildrenfood cue reactivitysex

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