title: Brain regulation of food craving: relationships with weight status and eating behavior.
abstract: Food craving is a driving force for overeating and obesity. However, the relationship between brain mechanisms involved in its regulation and weight status is still an open issue. Gaps in the studied body mass index (BMI) distributions and focusing on linear analyses might have contributed to this lack of knowledge. Here, we investigated brain mechanisms of craving regulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging in a balanced sample including normal-weight, overweight and obese participants. We investigated associations between characteristics of obesity, eating behavior and regulatory brain function focusing on nonlinear relationships.
  
  
  
  Forty-three hungry female volunteers (BMI: 19.4-38.8 kg m(-2), mean: 27.5±5.3 s.d.) were presented with visual food stimuli individually pre-rated according to tastiness and healthiness. The participants were instructed to either admit to the upcoming craving or regulate it. We analyzed the relationships between regulatory brain activity as well as functional connectivity and BMI or eating behavior (Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire, scales: Cognitive Restraint, Disinhibition).
  
  
  
  During regulation, BMI correlated with brain activity in the left putamen, amygdala and insula in an inverted U-shaped manner. Functional connectivity between the putamen and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) correlated positively with BMI, whereas that of amygdala with pallidum and lingual gyrus was nonlinearly (U-shaped) associated with BMI. Disinhibition correlated negatively with the strength of functional connectivity between amygdala and dorsomedial prefrontal (dmPFC) cortex as well as caudate.
  
  
  
  This study is the first to reveal quadratic relationships of food-related brain processes and BMI. Reported nonlinear associations indicate inverse relationships between regulation-related motivational processing in the range of normal weight/overweight compared with the obese range. Connectivity analyses suggest that the need for top-down (dlPFC) adjustment of striatal value representations increases with BMI, whereas the interplay of self-monitoring (dmPFC) or eating-related strategic action planning (caudate) and salience processing (amygdala) might be hampered with high Disinhibition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dietrich
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hollmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.|IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig University Medical Center, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mathar
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.|IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig University Medical Center, Leipzig, Germany.|Clinic for Cognitive Neurology, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.|Mind and Brain Institute, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-University and Charité, Berlin, Germany.|Leipzig University Medical Center, SFB 1052A1, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Villringer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.|IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig University Medical Center, Leipzig, Germany.|Leipzig University Medical Center, SFB 1052A5, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6184-8484
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Horstmann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001069:Appetite Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D066249:Craving / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006801:Humans; D006815:Hunger / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D012527:Satiation / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult