Dietary Restraint Related to Body Weight Maintenance and Neural Processing in Value-Coding Areas in Adolescents. Issue 7 (13th April 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nakamura, Yuko; Ando, Shuntaro; Yamasaki, Syudo; Okada, Naohiro; Nishida, Atsushi; Kasai, Kiyoto; Tanaka, Saori; Nakatani, Hironori; Koike, Shinsuke
• Is Part Of: Journal of nutrition. Volume 151:Issue 7(2021)
• Page Start: 2059
• Page End: 2067
• Publication Date: 2021-04-13
• Subjects: self-regulation -- neuroimaging -- medial prefrontal cortex -- childhood obesity -- weight change; Nutrition -- Periodicals; Diet -- Periodicals; 613.205
• DOI: 10.1093/jn/nxab068
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-3166

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Background: There is an alarming increase in the obesity prevalence among children in an environment of increasing availability of preprocessed high-calorie foods. However, some people maintain a healthy weight even in such obesogenic environments. This difference in body weight management could be attributed to individual differences in dietary restraint; however, its underlying neurocognitive mechanisms in adolescents remain unclear. Objectives: This study aimed to elucidate these neurocognitive mechanisms in adolescents by examining the relationships between dietary restraint and the food-related value-coding region located in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Methods: The association between dietary restraint and BMI was tested using a multilinear regression analysis in a large early adolescent cohort ( n = 2554; age, 12.2 ± 0.3 years; BMI, 17.9 ± 2.5 kg/m 2 ; 1354 boys). Further, an fMRI experiment was designed to assess the association between the vmPFC response to food images and dietary restraint in 30 adolescents (age, 17.6 ± 1.9 years; BMI, 20.7 ± 2.2 kg/m 2 ; 13 boys). Additionally, using 54 individuals from the cohort (age, 14.5 ± 0.6 years; BMI, 18.8 ± 2.6 kg/m 2 ; 31 boys), we assessed the association between dietary restraint and intrinsic vmPFC-related functional connectivity. Results: In the cohort, adolescents with increased dietary restraint showed a lower BMI (β = −0.38; P < 0.001; B = −0.06; SE = 0.003). The fMRI results showed a decreased vmPFC response to high-calorie food were correlated with greater dietary restraint. Moreover, there was an association of attenuated intrinsic vmPFC-related functional connectivity in the superior and middle frontal gyrus and the middle temporal gyrus with greater dietary restraint. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that dietary restraint in adolescents could be a preventive factor for weight gain; its effect involves modulating the vmPFC, which is associated with food value coding.