title: Inhibitory control in obesity and binge eating disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis of neurocognitive and neuroimaging studies.
abstract: The ability to exercise appropriate inhibitory control is critical in the regulation of body weight, but the exact mechanisms are not known. In this systematic review, we identified 37 studies that used specific neuropsychological tasks relevant to inhibitory control performance in obese participants with and without binge eating disorder (BED). We performed a meta-analysis of the studies that used the stop signal task (N=8). We further examined studies on the delay discounting task, the go/no-go task and the Stroop task in a narrative review. We found that inhibitory control is significantly impaired in obese adults and children compared to individuals with body weight within a healthy range (Standardized Mean Difference (SMD): 0.30; CI=0.00, 0.59, p=0.007). The presence of BED in obese individuals did not impact on task performance (SMD: 0.05; CI: -0.22, 0.32, p=0.419). Neuroimaging studies in obesity suggest that lower prefrontal cortex activity affects inhibitory control and BMI. In summary, impairment in inhibitory control is a critical feature associated with obesity and a potential target for clinical interventions.
authors.affiliation: UT Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UT Houston Medical School, Houston, TX, USA. Electronic address: luca.lavagnino@uth.tmc.edu.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lavagnino
authors.affiliation: Center for Affective Disorders, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, P074, 103 Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Arnone
authors.affiliation: UT Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UT Houston Medical School, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: UT Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UT Houston Medical School, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Jair C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Soares
authors.affiliation: UT Center of Excellence on Mood Disorders, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UT Houston Medical School, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Sudhakar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Selvaraj
mesh_terms: D056912:Binge-Eating Disorder; D001835:Body Weight; D015444:Exercise; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D059906:Neuroimaging; D009765:Obesity
keywords: Binge eating; Go/nogo; Inhibitory control; Obesity; Prefrontal cortex; Stop signal