TY - JOUR
T1 - Dysfunctional involvement of emotion and reward brain regions on social decision making in excess weight adolescents
AU - Verdejo-Garcia, Antonio Javier
AU - Verdejo-Roman, Juan
AU - Schmidt-Rio-Valle, Jacqueline
AU - Lacomba, Juan A
AU - Lagos, Francisco M
AU - Soriano-Mas, Carles
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Obese adolescents suffer negative social experiences, but no studies have examined whether obesity is associated with dysfunction of the social brain or whether social brain abnormalities relate to disadvantageous traits and social decisions. We aimed at mapping functional activation differences in the brain circuitry of social decision making in adolescents with excess versus normal weight, and at examining whether these separate patterns correlate with reward/punishment sensitivity, disordered eating features, and behavioral decisions. In this fMRI study, 80 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old were classified in two groups based on age adjusted body mass index (BMI) percentiles: normal weight (n=44, BMI percentiles 5th-84th) and excess weight (n=36, BMI percentile=85th). Participants were scanned while performing a social decision-making task (ultimatum game) in which they chose to accept or reject offers to split monetary stakes made by another peer. Offers varied in fairness (Fair vs. Unfair) but in all cases accepting meant both players win the money, whereas rejecting meant both lose it. We showed that adolescents with excess weight compared to controls display significantly decreased activation of anterior insula, anterior cingulate, and midbrain during decisions about Unfair versus Fair offers. Moreover, excess weight subjects show lower sensitivity to reward and more maturity fears, which correlate with insula activation. Indeed, blunted insula activation accounted for the relationship between maturity fears and acceptance of unfair offers. Excess weight adolescents have diminished activation of brain regions essential for affective tracking of social decision making, which accounts for the association between maturity fears and social decisions
AB - Obese adolescents suffer negative social experiences, but no studies have examined whether obesity is associated with dysfunction of the social brain or whether social brain abnormalities relate to disadvantageous traits and social decisions. We aimed at mapping functional activation differences in the brain circuitry of social decision making in adolescents with excess versus normal weight, and at examining whether these separate patterns correlate with reward/punishment sensitivity, disordered eating features, and behavioral decisions. In this fMRI study, 80 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old were classified in two groups based on age adjusted body mass index (BMI) percentiles: normal weight (n=44, BMI percentiles 5th-84th) and excess weight (n=36, BMI percentile=85th). Participants were scanned while performing a social decision-making task (ultimatum game) in which they chose to accept or reject offers to split monetary stakes made by another peer. Offers varied in fairness (Fair vs. Unfair) but in all cases accepting meant both players win the money, whereas rejecting meant both lose it. We showed that adolescents with excess weight compared to controls display significantly decreased activation of anterior insula, anterior cingulate, and midbrain during decisions about Unfair versus Fair offers. Moreover, excess weight subjects show lower sensitivity to reward and more maturity fears, which correlate with insula activation. Indeed, blunted insula activation accounted for the relationship between maturity fears and acceptance of unfair offers. Excess weight adolescents have diminished activation of brain regions essential for affective tracking of social decision making, which accounts for the association between maturity fears and social decisions
UR - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.22625/epdf
U2 - 10.1002/hbm.22625
DO - 10.1002/hbm.22625
M3 - Article
VL - 36
SP - 226
EP - 237
JO - Human Brain Mapping
JF - Human Brain Mapping
SN - 1065-9471
IS - 1
ER -