Reduction in neural activation to high-calorie food cues in obese endometrial cancer survivors after a behavioral lifestyle intervention: a pilot study

BMC Neuroscience

Research Article

Jean Tkach¹  Nora L Nock²  Anastasia Dimitropoulos³  Vivan vonGruenigen⁴  Heidi Frasure⁵ 

[1] Case Center for Imaging Research, Department of Radiology, Case Western Reserve University, 44106, Cleveland, OH, USA;Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University, Wolstein Research Building, 2103 Cornell Road, 44106-7281, Cleveland, OH, USA;Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Case Western Reserve University, 44106, Cleveland, OH, USA;Department of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, 44106, Cleveland, OH, USA;Department of Reproductive Biology, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University, 44106, Cleveland, OH, USA;University Hospitals Case Medical Center, 44106, Cleveland, OH, USA;

关键词: Obesity;    Endometrial cancer;    fMRI;    Reward;    High-calorie foods;    Lifestyle intervention;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2202-13-74

 received in 2012-02-24, accepted in 2012-06-12,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundObesity increases the risk of endometrial cancer (EC) and obese EC patients have the highest risk of death among all obesity-associated cancers. However, only two lifestyle interventions targeting this high-risk population have been conducted. In one trial, food disinhibition, as determined by the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire, decreased post-intervention compared to baseline, suggesting an increase in emotional eating and, potentially, an increase in food related reward. Therefore, we evaluated appetitive behavior using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a visual food task in 8 obese, Stage I/II EC patients before and after a lifestyle intervention (Survivors in Uterine Cancer Empowered by Exercise and a Healthy Diet, SUCCEED), which aimed to improve nutritional and exercise behaviors over 16 group sessions in 6 months using social cognitive theory.ResultsCongruent to findings in the general obese population, we found that obese EC patients, at baseline, had increased activation in response to high- vs. low-calorie food cues after eating a meal in brain regions associated with food reward (insula, cingulate gyrus; precentral gyrus; whole brain cluster corrected, p < 0.05). At 6 months post-intervention compared to baseline, we observed decreased activation for the high-calorie vs. non-food contrast, post-meal, in regions involved in food reward and motivation (posterior cingulate, cingulate gyrus, lateral globus pallidus, thalamus; claustrum; whole brain cluster corrected, p < 0.05).ConclusionsOur preliminary results suggest behavioral lifestyle interventions may help to reduce high-calorie food reward in obese EC survivors who are at a high-risk of death. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate such changes.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Nock et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012