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Altered effective connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and caudate in children with overweight and obesity

Haiyan Xin1,2, Ximei Chen3,4, Wei Li1,2

  • 1Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.

International Journal of Obesity (2005)
|May 13, 2026
PubMed

Insights

Children with overweight and obesity show altered brain connectivity in reward and control systems. These neural patterns predict future eating behaviors, suggesting targeted interventions for childhood obesity.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Pediatric Obesity Research
  • Brain Connectivity Studies

Background:

  • Childhood obesity is a growing public health concern.
  • Altered reward and inhibitory control systems are implicated in obesity.
  • Understanding the neural basis of these systems is crucial for effective interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate functional and effective connectivity differences between reward and inhibitory control systems in children with overweight/obesity (OW/OB) compared to normal weight (NW) children.
  • To determine if baseline neural connectivity patterns can predict future eating behaviors.
  • To elucidate the neural hierarchical basis of childhood obesity.

Main Methods:

  • Resting-state fMRI data analyzed using seed-based functional connectivity (FC) and spectral dynamic causal modeling (DCM) for effective connectivity (EC).
  • Comparison of FC and EC between 38 OW/OB children and 68 NW children.
  • Machine learning applied to predict eating behaviors at one-year follow-up based on baseline connectivity.

Main Results:

  • OW/OB group showed stronger FC between left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and left caudate, and weaker FC between left SFG and right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC).
  • OW/OB group exhibited stronger negative EC (caudate→SFG), weaker negative EC (SFG→vmPFC), and weaker positive EC (vmPFC→SFG) compared to NW group.
  • Baseline caudate→caudate and vmPFC→SFG connectivity significantly predicted changes in eating behaviors at one-year follow-up.

Conclusions:

  • The study reveals distinct neural hierarchical patterns in the reward and inhibitory control systems associated with childhood obesity.
  • Specific connectivity pathways (caudate→SFG, SFG→vmPFC, vmPFC→SFG) are identified as key neural correlates of obesity.
  • Findings support the development of targeted interventions focusing on reward processing and inhibitory control for managing childhood obesity.
Abstract

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