ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Neuroimaging studies have identified obesity-related differences in the brain's resting state activity. An imbalance between homeostatic and reward aspects of ingestive behaviour may contribute to obesity and food addiction. The interactions between early life adversity (ELA), the reward network and food addiction were investigated to identify obesity and sex-related differences, which may drive obesity and food addiction. METHODS: Functional resting state magnetic resonance imaging was acquired in 186 participants (high body mass index [BMI]: ≥25: 53 women and 54 men; normal BMI: 18.50-24.99: 49 women and 30 men). Participants completed questionnaires to assess ELA (Early Traumatic Inventory) and food addiction (Yale Food Addiction Scale). A tripartite network analysis based on graph theory was used to investigate the interaction between ELA, brain connectivity and food addiction. Interactions were determined by computing Spearman rank correlations, thresholded at q < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: Participants with high BMI demonstrate an association between ELA and food addiction, with reward regions playing a role in this interaction. Among women with high BMI, increased ELA was associated with increased centrality of reward and emotion regulation regions. Men with high BMI showed associations between ELA and food addiction with somatosensory regions playing a role in this interaction. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that ELA may alter brain networks, leading to increased vulnerability for food addiction and obesity later in life. These alterations are sex specific and involve brain regions influenced by dopaminergic or serotonergic signalling.
ABSTRACT
AIM: To study the clinical features of inflammatory and atrophic changes (IAls) in the gastroduodenal zone (GDZ) in people with varying severity of chronic heart failure (CHF) associated with coronary artery disease (CAD) and to determine gastric secretion, local microcirculation, and the presence of Helicobacter pylori. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Seventy-four patients with CHF and gastric duodenal (GD) IAls who were divided into 2 groups according to its severity were examined. The specific features of impaired gastric secretory function and blood flow in the GD mucosa and its contamination with H. pylori were elucidated. RESULTS: GD IAls were ascertained to be mainly focal in the patients with Stages I-Ila CHF and focal or diffuse in those with Stages IIb-III. According the clinical findings, these changes were generally shown in the concurrence of transient and unstable (in early- stage circulatory insufficiency) and prolonged and persistent (during severe congestive events) phenomena. The development of IAls in the GDZ was linked to its thrombohemorrhagic microcirculatory disorders, the severity of which increased as the symptoms of CHF progressed. In Stages I-Ila circulatory insufficiency, this was accompanied by the normal activity of acid-peptic factor, by the decreased production gastromucoproteins, and, in 58.3% of cases, by H. pylori. The patients with Stages IIb-III showed the suppressed production of all constituents of gastric secretion and H. pylori in 63.2% of cases. CONCLUSION: The clinical manifestations and mechanisms of GD IAIs in CHF associated with CAD have a number of substantial differences in relation to its severity, which should be kept in mind when elaborating therapeutic and diagnostic measures.
