Journal
BRAIN RESEARCH
Volume 1386, Issue -, Pages 109-117Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2011.02.071
Keywords
Reward value; Taste; Gustatory; Nucleus accumbens; Caudate; fMRI
Categories
Funding
- National Institute on Aging, NIH [AG04085]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Although obesity is recognized as a global health epidemic, insufficient research has been directed to understanding the rising prevalence of obesity in the fastest growing segment of the population, older adults. Late-life obesity has been linked to declines in physical health and cognitive function, with implications not only for the individual, but also for society. We investigated the hypothesis that altered brain responses to food reward is associated with obesity, using fMRI of response to pleasant and aversive taste stimuli in young and older adults performing a hedonic evaluation task. Correlations between higher levels of abdominal fat/body mass index and reduced fMRI activation to sucrose in dopamine-related brain regions (caudate, nucleus accumbens) were large in older adults. Significant associations between a hypofunctioning reward response and obesity suggest the hypothesis that decreased dopamine functioning may be a plausible mechanism for weight gain in older adults. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available