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Brain responses to food and weight loss
Author(s) -
Behary Preeshila,
Miras Alexander D.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
experimental physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.925
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1469-445X
pISSN - 0958-0670
DOI - 10.1113/expphysiol.2014.078303
Subject(s) - weight loss , psychology , neuroscience , food science , biology , obesity , endocrinology
New FindingsWhat is the topic of this review? This report provides an overview of how functional neuroimaging technology has accelerated our understanding of human eating behaviour.What advances does it highlight? The human brain responds not only to hunger and satiation, but also to the rewarding value of food. The latter is encoded in the brain reward system, which promotes the consumption of energy‐dense food and is dysregulated in the context of obesity. In the majority of obese patients, dieting‐induced weight loss is resisted by compensatory activation of the homeostatic and hedonic brain systems, whereas pharmacological and bariatric surgery interventions might be more effective in overcoming this brain response.In this symposium report, we examine how functional neuroimaging has revolutionized the study of human eating behaviour. In the last 20 years, functional magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography techniques have enabled researchers to understand how the human brain regions that control homeostatic and hedonic eating respond to food in physiological and pathological states. Hypothalamic, brainstem, limbic and cortical brain areas form part of a well‐co‐ordinated brain system that responds to central and peripheral neuronal, hormonal and nutrient signals. Even in physiological conditions, it promotes the consumption of energy‐dense food, because this is advantageous in evolutionary terms. Its function is dysregulated in the context of obesity so as to promote weight gain and resist weight loss. Pharmacological and bariatric surgical interventions might be more successful than lifestyle interventions in inducing weight loss and maintenance because, unlike dieting, they reduce not only hunger but also the reward value of food through their actions in homeostatic and hedonic brain regions. Functional neuroimaging is a research tool that cannot be used in isolation; its findings become meaningful and useful only when combined with data from direct measures of eating behaviour. The neuroimaging technology is continuously improving and is expected to contribute further to the in‐depth understanding of the obesity phenotype and accelerate the development of more effective and safer treatments for the condition.