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Gray matter volume and functional connectivity underlying binge eating in healthy children

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Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

As a maladaptive disordered eating behavior, binge eating (BE) onset has been reported in children as young as eight years old and is linked with a range of negative psychological consequences. However, previous neuroimaging research of BE has mainly focused on adults in clinical conditions, and little is known about the potential neurostructural and neurofunctional bases of BE in healthy children.

Methods

In this study, we examined these issues in 76 primary school students (mean age = 9.86 years) using voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) approaches.

Results

After controlling for age, sex, and total intracranial volume/head motion, we observed that higher levels of BE were correlated with greater gray matter volumes (GMV) in the left fusiform and right insula and weaker rsFC between the right insula and following three regions: right orbital frontal cortex, left cingulate gyrus, and left superior frontal gyrus. No significant associations were observed between BE and regional white matter volume. Significant sex differences were found only in the relationship between BE and GMV in the left fusiform. Furthermore, the GMV- and rsFC-based predictive models (a machine-learning method) achieved significant correlations between the actual and predicted BE values, demonstrating the robustness of our findings.

Conclusion

The present study provides novel evidence for the brain structural and functional substrates of children’s BE, and further reveals that the weakened communication between core regions associated with negative affectivity, reward responsivity, and executive function is strongly related to dysregulated eating.

Level of evidence

Level V, descriptive study.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31771237; No. 32271087), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. SWU1709106), and Innovative Research Project for Postgraduate Student of Chongqing (No. CYB21083). The authors would like to express their gratitude to all associated research assistants for their help with participant recruitment and data collection and thank Chaoyang Primary School and Zhongshan Road Primary School for their support of this research.

Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31771237; No. 32271087), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. SWU1709106), and Innovative Research Project for Postgraduate Student of Chongqing (No. CYB21083).

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  1. Ximei Chen and Wei Li contributed equally to this work.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, No. 2, Tiansheng Road, Beibei District, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Ximei Chen, Wei Li, Jingmin Qin, Xiao Gao, Yong Liu, Shiqing Song, Yufei Huang & Hong Chen

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Chen, X., Li, W., Qin, J. et al. Gray matter volume and functional connectivity underlying binge eating in healthy children. Eat Weight Disord 27, 3469–3478 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-022-01483-7

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