Multimodal Neuroimaging of Brain Structure, Metabolism, and Function in Obesity: Current Landscape and Future Perspectives

Obesity is a systemic disease that not only increases the incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease but also contributes to central nervous system disorders such as cognitive impairment, depression, and anxiety. Neuroimaging studies have confirmed that obesity leads to various forms of brain damage, as well as abnormalities in the function and metabolism of different brain regions. Multimodal neuroimaging, a collection of detection tools capable of visualizing neural diseases, has shown potential in diagnosing various brain disorders, and it provides insights from multiple perspectives to explore the pathological mechanisms of brain damage associated with obesity. Structural imaging techniques within multimodal imaging have identified changes in the volume and microstructure of the brain's gray and white matter. Functional imaging has detected abnormal activation and disrupted circuits in specific brain regions, while metabolic imaging has revealed neurochemical changes in the brain. In this review, we provide an overview of multimodal neuroimaging in obesity-related brain diseases, systematically analyzing these diseases from three aspects: structure, metabolism, and function. Additionally, we introduce novel multimodal imaging techniques that hold potential but have not yet been applied to obesity-related studies, aiming to provide a theoretical foundation for future clinical diagnosis and treatment.