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Background/objectives: Excessive body mass index (BMI) has been linked to a low-grade chronic inflammation state. Unhealthy BMI has also been related to neuroanatomical changes in adults. Research in adolescents is relatively limited and has produced conflicting results. This study aims to address the relationship between BMI and adolescents' brain structure as well as to test the role that inflammatory adipose-related agents might have over this putative link.
Methods: We studied structural MRI and serum levels of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), C-reactive protein and fibrinogen in 65 adolescents (aged 12-21 years). Relationships between BMI, cortical thickness and surface area were tested with a vertex-wise analysis. Subsequently, we used backward multiple linear regression models to explore the influence of inflammatory parameters in each brain-altered area.
Results: We found a negative association between cortical thickness and BMI in the left lateral occipital cortex (LOC) and the right precentral gyrus as well as a positive relationship between surface area and BMI in the left rostral middle frontal gyrus and the right superior frontal gyrus. In addition, we found that higher fibrinogen serum concentrations were related to thinning within the left LOC (β = -0.45, p < 0.001), while higher serum levels of TNF-α were associated to a greater surface area in the right superior frontal gyrus (β = 0.32, p = 0.045). Besides, we have also identified a trend that negatively correlates the cortical thickness of the left fusiform gyrus with the increases in BMI. It was also associated to fibrinogen (β = -0.33, p = 0.035).
Conclusions: These results suggest that adolescents' body mass increases are related with brain abnormalities in areas that could play a relevant role in some aspects of feeding behavior. Likewise, we have evidenced that these cortical changes were partially explained by inflammatory agents such as fibrinogen and TNF-α.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41366-020-0582-y | DOI Listing |
Brain Behav
September 2025
Radiology Department, Yantaishan Hospital, Yantai, Shandong, China.
Objective: To investigate the characteristics of brain structures in patients with noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) using source-based morphometry (SBM) and to evaluate the correlation between abnormal brain regions and clinical data.
Methods: High-resolution 3D T1 structural images were acquired from 81 patients with NIHL and 74 age- and education level-matched healthy controls (HCs). The clinical data of all subjects were collected, including noise exposure time, monaural hearing threshold weighted values (MTWVs), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) scores.
Brain Res Bull
September 2025
Department of Neurology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, 230601, He Fei, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, 230032, Hefei, China; Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, 230032, Hefei,
Background: The relationships between white matter microstructure, cortical atrophy, and cognitive function in cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD)-related white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) patients are unclear.
Methods: 71 right-handed WMHs patients (mild, n=23; moderate, n=27; severe, n=21) and 35 healthy controls were included. Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) assessed microstructure via fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD).
Neuroimage Clin
September 2025
Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Objectives: To examine associations between low cognitive-performance and regional-and network-level brain changes at ages 9-10 in very-preterm, moderately-preterm, and full-term children, and explore whether these alterations predict ASD/ADHD symptoms at age 12.
Methods: This longitudinal population-based study included 9-10-year-old U.S.
Alzheimers Dement
September 2025
Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
Introduction: Antisocial behaviors occur in dementia, but the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms remain underexplored. We administered a decision-making task measuring patients' harm aversion by offering options to shock themselves or another person in exchange for money, hypothesizing that task performance would relate to antisocial behaviors and ventromedial/orbitofrontal cortex (vmPFC/OFC) atrophy.
Methods: Among 43 dementia patients (n = 23 behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia [bvFTD], n = 20 Alzheimer's disease [AD]), we used linear regressions to measure relationships between harm aversion and antisocial behavior, psychopathic personality traits, socioemotional functions, and vmPFC/OFC cortical thickness, controlling for age, sex, and cognitive dysfunction.