Dynamic Network Reconfiguration of Brain Function During Exposure to Aversive Stimuli

Obesity, a critical public health challenge, involves dysregulated food stimuli responses central to its pathophysiology. Aversion to harmful food is protective, but dynamic brain network reorganization during aversion processing in obesity and its clinical implications remain inadequately understood.

Brain activity was recorded from 30 participants with obesity and 35 healthy participants during exposure to spoiled food videos in an MRI scanner. We applied dynamic network analysis to assess obesity-related alterations in neural circuits and their links to eating disorders.

The group with obesity showed significantly lower integration between the visual (VN), dorsal attention (DAN), and subcortical (SUB) networks than the healthy control group while viewing spoiled food videos. Critically, this DAN-SUB integration correlated positively with body image distress and negatively with craving ratings, and it moderated the predictive link between cognitive impulsivity and eating disorders. Granger causality analysis confirmed a dominant indirect pathway with stronger effective connectivity, showing differential spatial associations with neurotransmitter receptors (α4β2, mGluR5, NMDA, and CB1).

This study reveals VN-DAN-SUB dynamic interactions in aversion processing, emphasizing the indirect pathway's key role. Inefficient VN-DAN-SUB coordination in obesity may impair aversive food stimuli regulation, supporting the emotion regulation deficit hypothesis and offering a neurobiological basis for future interventions.