Dataset Information

The effect of weight loss following 18 months of lifestyle intervention on brain age assessed with resting-state functional connectivity.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Obesity negatively impacts multiple bodily systems, including the central nervous system. Retrospective studies that estimated chronological age from neuroimaging have found accelerated brain aging in obesity, but it is unclear how this estimation would be affected by weight loss following a lifestyle intervention.

Methods

In a sub-study of 102 participants of the Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial Polyphenols Unprocessed Study (DIRECT-PLUS) trial, we tested the effect of weight loss following 18 months of lifestyle intervention on predicted brain age based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-assessed resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC). We further examined how dynamics in multiple health factors, including anthropometric measurements, blood biomarkers, and fat deposition, can account for changes in brain age.

Results

To establish our method, we first demonstrated that our model could successfully predict chronological age from RSFC in three cohorts (n=291;358;102). We then found that among the DIRECT-PLUS participants, 1% of body weight loss resulted in an 8.9 months' attenuation of brain age. Attenuation of brain age was significantly associated with improved liver biomarkers, decreased liver fat, and visceral and deep subcutaneous adipose tissues after 18 months of intervention. Finally, we showed that lower consumption of processed food, sweets and beverages were associated with attenuated brain age.

Conclusions

Successful weight loss following lifestyle intervention might have a beneficial effect on the trajectory of brain aging.

Funding

The German Research Foundation (DFG), German Research Foundation - project number 209933838 - SFB 1052; B11, Israel Ministry of Health grant 87472511 (to I Shai); Israel Ministry of Science and Technology grant 3-13604 (to I Shai); and the California Walnuts Commission 09933838 SFB 105 (to I Shai).

SUBMITTER: Levakov G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10174688 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

The effect of weight loss following 18 months of lifestyle intervention on brain age assessed with resting-state functional connectivity.

Levakov Gidon G Kaplan Alon A Yaskolka Meir Anat A Rinott Ehud E Tsaban Gal G Zelicha Hila H Blüher Matthias M Ceglarek Uta U Stumvoll Michael M Shelef Ilan I Avidan Galia G Shai Iris I

eLife 20230406

<h4>Background</h4>Obesity negatively impacts multiple bodily systems, including the central nervous system. Retrospective studies that estimated chronological age from neuroimaging have found accelerated brain aging in obesity, but it is unclear how this estimation would be affected by weight loss following a lifestyle intervention.<h4>Methods</h4>In a sub-study of 102 participants of the Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial Polyphenols Unprocessed Study (DIRECT-PLUS) trial, we test ...[more]

PMID: 37022140

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Project description:Weight gain is often associated with the pleasure of eating food rich in calories. This idea is based on the findings that people with obesity showed increased neural activity in the reward and motivation systems of the brain in response to food cues. Such correlations, however, overlook the possibility that obesity may be associated with a metabolic state that impacts the functioning of reward and motivation systems, which in turn could be linked to reactivity to food and eating behaviour and weight gain. In a study involving 44 female participants [14 patients with obesity, aged 20-63 years (mean: 42, SEM: 3.2 years), and 30 matched lean controls, aged 22-60 years (mean: 37, SEM: 1.8 years)], we investigated how ventromedial prefrontal cortex seed-to-voxel resting-state connectivity distinguished between lean and obese participants at baseline. We used the results of this first step of our analyses to examine whether changes in ventromedial prefrontal cortex resting-state connectivity over 8 months could formally predict weight gain or loss. It is important to note that participants with obesity underwent bariatric surgery at the beginning of our investigation period. We found that ventromedial prefrontal cortex-ventral striatum resting-state connectivity and ventromedial-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex resting-state connectivity were sensitive to obesity at baseline. However, only the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-ventral striatum resting-state connectivity predicted weight changes over time using cross-validation, out-of-sample prediction analysis. Such an out-of-sample prediction analysis uses the data of all participants of a training set to predict the actually observed data in one independent participant in the hold-out validation sample and is then repeated for all participants. In seeking to explain the reason why ventromedial pre-frontal cortex-ventral striatum resting-state connectivity as the central hub of the brain's reward and motivational system may predict weight change over time, we linked weight loss surgery-induced changes in ventromedial prefrontal cortex-ventral striatum resting-state connectivity to surgery-induced changes in homeostatic hormone regulation. More specifically, we focussed on changes in fasting state systemic leptin, a homeostatic hormone signalling satiety, and inhibiting reward-related dopamine signalling. We found that the surgery-induced increase in ventromedial prefrontal cortex-ventral striatum resting-state connectivity was correlated with a decrease in fasting-state systemic leptin. These findings establish the first link between individual differences in brain connectivity in reward circuits in a more tonic state at rest, weight change over time and homeostatic hormone regulation.

Dataset Information

The effect of weight loss following 18 months of lifestyle intervention on brain age assessed with resting-state functional connectivity.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Funding

Publications

The effect of weight loss following 18 months of lifestyle intervention on brain age assessed with resting-state functional connectivity.

Similar Datasets

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