Lack of response to disgusting food in the hypothalamus and related structures in Prader Willi syndrome
Blanco Hinojo, Laura (Hospital del Mar (Barcelona, Catalunya))
Pujol Nuez, Jesús (Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental)
Esteba-Castillo, Susanna (Parc Hospitalari Martí i Julià)
Martínez-Vilavella, Gerard (Hospital del Mar (Barcelona, Catalunya))
Giménez-Palop, Olga (Parc Taulí Hospital Universitari. Institut d'Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT))
Gabau, Elisabeth (Parc Taulí Hospital Universitari. Institut d'Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT))
Casamitjana, Laia (Parc Taulí Hospital Universitari. Institut d'Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT))
Deus Yela, Juan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Psiquiatria i de Medicina Legal)
Novell, Ramon (Parc Hospitalari Martí i Julià)
Caixàs i Pedragós, Assumpta (Parc Taulí Hospital Universitari. Institut d'Investigació i Innovació Parc Taulí (I3PT))

Date:	2019
Abstract:	To investigate, based on a putative abnormal neural processing of disgusting signals in Prader Willi syndrome (PWS) patients, the brain response to visual representations of disgusting food in PWS using functional MRI (fMRI). Twenty-one genetically-confirmed PWS patients, 30 age- and sex-matched and 28 BMI-matched control subjects viewed a movie depicting disgusting food-related scenes interspersed with scenes of appetizing food while fMRI was acquired. Brain activation maps were compared between groups and correlated with disgust and hunger ratings. At the cortical level, the response to disgusting food representations in PWS patients was qualitatively similar to that of control subjects, albeit less extensive, and engaged brain regions typically related to visually-evoked disgust, such as the anterior insula/frontal operculum, the lateral frontal cortex and visual areas. By contrast, activation was almost absent in limbic structures directly concerned with the regulation of instinctive behavior robustly activated in control subjects, such as the hypothalamus, amygdala/hippocampus and periaqueductal gray. Our study provides novel insights into the neural substrates of appetite control in a genetically-mediated cause of obesity. The presence of significant cortical changes further indicates that PWS patients consciously process disgusting stimuli, but the virtual absence of response in deep, limbic structures suggests that disgusting signals do not adequately reach the primary brain system for the appetite control.
Grants:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca SGR2014-1673 Instituto de Salud Carlos III PI-14/2057
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Prader Willi syndrome ; Functional MRI ; Disgust ; Hypothalamus
Published in:	NeuroImage, Vol. 21 (january 2019) , ISSN 2213-1582

DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2019.101662
PMID: 30639180

8 p, 1.1 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Health sciences and biosciences > Parc Taulí Research and Innovation Institute (I3PT
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles