Altered spontaneous neural activity and its association with cognition, abdominal fat and liver function in children with obesity.

Abstract

Background: The spontaneous neural activity alterations and their correlations with cognition, abdominal fat, and liver function in children with obesity remains unclear. This study examined the spontaneous neural activity variations in children with obesity using fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) analysis and correlated the findings with clinical data.

Methods: Fifty-nine children with obesity and forty-eight healthy controls underwent resting-state functional MRI. The brain regions with altered fALFF values between the two groups were extracted and the correlations with clinical data were assessed.

Results: Compared with controls, children with obesity had higher fALFF values in the left insula, left superior temporal gyrus (STG), left middle frontal gyrus and right middle cingulate gyrus (MCG). In the obesity group, fALFF values in the left STG positively correlated with visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue area and verbal comprehension index. Contrastingly, fALFF values in the right MCG positively correlated with alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase levels.

Conclusions: Childhood obesity is associated with impaired spontaneous neural activity in brain regions linked to salience, self-control and inhibition, and verbal comprehension. In children with obesity, language comprehension may be impacted by STG's neural activity, whilst regional neural activity may be influenced by abdominal fat and liver function.

Impact: Childhood obesity is linked to diminished verbal understanding and impaired spontaneous neural activity in brain that handle salience, executive function, and verbal processing. The ability to comprehend language can be compromised in children with obesity due to changes in spontaneous neural activity. Regional spontaneous neural activity may be affected by abdominal fat and liver function in children with obesity.