title: Child overweight and obesity are associated with reduced executive cognitive performance and brain alterations: a magnetic resonance imaging study in Mexican children.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Overweight and obesity in childhood is associated with negative physical and psychological effects. It has been proposed that obesity increase the risk for developing cognitive deficits, dementia and Alzheimer's disease and that it may be associated with marked differences in specific brain structure volumes.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was a neurobiopsychological approach to examine the association between overweight and obesity, brain structure and a paediatric neuropsychological assessment in Mexican children between 6 and 8 years of age.
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated the relation between the body mass index (BMI), brain volumetric segmentation of subcortical gray and white matter regions obtained with magnetic resonance imaging and the Neuropsychological Assessment of Children standardized for Latin America. Thirty-three healthy Mexican children between 6 and 8 years of age, divided into normal weight (18 children) and overweight/obese (15 children) groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overweight/obese children showed reduced executive cognitive performance on neuropsychological evaluations (i.e. verbal fluidity, P = 0.03) and presented differences in brain structures related to learning and memory (reduced left hippocampal volumes, P = 0.04) and executive functions (larger white matter volumes in the left cerebellum, P = 0.04 and mid-posterior corpus callosum, P = 0.03). Additionally, we found a positive correlation between BMI and left globulus pallidus (P = 0.012, ρ = 0.43) volume and a negative correlation between BMI and neuropsychological evaluation scores (P = 0.033, ρ = -0.37).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings contribute to the idea that there is a relationship between BMI, executive cognitive performance and brain structure that may underlie the causal chain that leads to obesity in adulthood.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Tropical Medicine and International Health, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Juriquilla, Querétaro, México.
authors.forename: C C C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Moreno
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: González-Santos
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Concha
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barquera
authors.forename: F A
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Barrios
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico / Q000453:epidemiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology
keywords: executive cognitive function; hippocampus; neuropsychological assessment; volumetric MRI