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Kulisch LK, Arumäe K, Briley DA, Vainik U. Triangulating causality between childhood obesity and neurobehavior: Behavioral genetic and longitudinal evidence. Dev Sci 2023; 26:e13392. [PMID: 36950909 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13392] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/09/2022] [Revised: 02/17/2023] [Accepted: 02/24/2023] [Indexed: 03/24/2023]
Abstract
Childhood obesity is a serious health concern that is not yet fully understood. Previous research has linked obesity with neurobehavioral factors such as behavior, cognition, and brain morphology. The causal directions of these relationships remain mostly untested. We filled this gap by using the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study cohort comprising 11,875 children aged 9-10. First, correlations between the age- and sex-specific 95th BMI percentile (%BMIp95) and neurobehavioral measures were cross-sectionally analyzed. Effects were then aggregated by neurobehavioral domain for causal analyses. Behavioral genetic Direction of Causation modeling was used to test the direction of each relationship. Findings were validated by longitudinal cross-lagged panel modeling. %BMIp95 correlated with impulsivity, motivation, psychopathology, eating behavior, and cognitive tests (executive functioning, language, memory, perception, working memory). Greater %BMIp95 was also associated with reduced cortical thickness in frontal and temporal brain areas but with increased thickness in parietal and occipital areas. Similar although weaker patterns emerged for cortical surface area and volume. Behavioral genetic modeling suggested causal effects of %BMIp95 on eating behavior (β = 0.26), cognition (β = 0.05), cortical thickness (β = 0.15), and cortical surface area (β = 0.07). Personality/psychopathology (β = 0.09) and eating behavior (β = 0.16) appeared to influence %BMIp95. Longitudinal evidence broadly supported these findings. Results regarding cortical volume were inconsistent. Results supported causal effects of obesity on brain functioning and morphology. The present study highlights the importance of physical health for brain development and may inform interventions aimed at preventing or reducing pediatric obesity. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: A continuous measure related to obesity, %BMIp95, has correlations with various measures of brain functioning and structure Behavioral genetic and longitudinal modeling suggest causal links from personality, psychopathology, and eating behavior to %BMIp95 Results also indicate directional links from %BMIp95 to eating behavior, cognition, cortical thickness, and cortical surface area Obesity may play a role for healthy brain development during childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonard Konstantin Kulisch
- Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
- Wilhem Wundt Institute for Pschology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Kadri Arumäe
- Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Daniel A Briley
- Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA
| | - Uku Vainik
- Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
- Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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Carnell S, Thapaliya G, Jansen E, Chen L. Biobehavioral susceptibility for obesity in childhood: Behavioral, genetic and neuroimaging studies of appetite. Physiol Behav 2023; 271:114313. [PMID: 37544571 PMCID: PMC10591980 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2023] [Revised: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 08/08/2023]
Abstract
Modern food environments are conducive to overeating and weight gain, but not everyone develops obesity. One reason for this may be that individuals differ in appetitive characteristics, or traits, that manifest early in life and go on to influence their behavioral susceptibility to gain and maintain excess weight. Classic studies showing that eating behavior in children can be measured by behavioral paradigms such as tests of caloric compensation and eating in the absence of hunger inspired the development and validation of psychometric instruments to assess appetitive characteristics in children and infants. A large body of evidence now suggests that food approach traits increase obesity risk, while food avoidant traits, such as satiety responsiveness, decrease obesity risk. Twin studies and genetic association studies have demonstrated that appetitive characteristics are heritable, consistent with a biological etiology. However, family environment factors are also influential, with mounting evidence suggesting that genetic and environmental risk factors interact and correlate with consequences for child eating behavior and weight. Further, neuroimaging studies are revealing that individual differences in responses to visual food cues, as well as to small tastes and larger amounts of food, across a number of brain regions involved in reward/motivation, cognitive control and other functions, may contribute to individual variation in appetitive behavior. Growing evidence also suggests that variation on psychometric measures of appetite is associated with regional differences in brain structure, and differential patterns of resting state functional connectivity. Large prospective studies beginning in infancy promise to enrich our understanding of neural and other biological underpinnings of appetite and obesity development in early life, and how the interplay between genetic and environmental factors affects appetitive systems. The biobehavioral susceptibility model of obesity development and maintenance outlined in this narrative review has implications for prevention and treatment of obesity in childhood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Susan Carnell
- Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore MD, USA.
| | - Gita Thapaliya
- Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore MD, USA
| | - Elena Jansen
- Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore MD, USA
| | - Liuyi Chen
- Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore MD, USA
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Poor Cognitive Agility Conservation in Obese Aging People. Biomedicines 2023; 11:biomedicines11010138. [PMID: 36672646 PMCID: PMC9855664 DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines11010138] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2022] [Revised: 12/28/2022] [Accepted: 12/29/2022] [Indexed: 01/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Life expectancy has been boosted in recent decades at expenses of increasing the age-associated diseases. Dementia, for its incidence, stands out among the pathologies associated with aging. The exacerbated cognitive deterioration disables people from carrying out their daily lives autonomously and this incidence increases exponentially after 65 years of age. The etiology of dementia is a miscellaneous combination of risk factors that restrain the quality of life of our elderly. In this sense, it has been established that some metabolic pathologies such as obesity and diabetes act as a risk factor for dementia development. In contrast, a high educational level, as well as moderate physical activity, have been shown to be protective factors against cognitive impairment and the development of dementia. In the present study, we have evaluated the metabolic composition of a population between 60-90 years old, mentally healthy and with high academic degrees. After assessing agility in mental state, we have established relationships between their cognitive abilities and their body composition. Our data support that excess body fat is associated with poorer maintenance of cognition, while higher percentages of muscle mass are associated with the best results in the cognitive tests.
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Nuber S, Chung CY, Tardiff DF, Bechade PA, McCaffery TD, Shimanaka K, Choi J, Chang B, Raja W, Neves E, Burke C, Jiang X, Xu P, Khurana V, Dettmer U, Fanning S, Rhodes KJ, Selkoe DJ, Scannevin RH. A Brain-Penetrant Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase Inhibitor Reverses α-Synuclein Toxicity. Neurotherapeutics 2022; 19:1018-1036. [PMID: 35445353 PMCID: PMC9294123 DOI: 10.1007/s13311-022-01199-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/04/2022] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Increasing evidence has shown that Parkinson's disease (PD) impairs midbrain dopaminergic, cortical and other neuronal subtypes in large part due to the build-up of lipid- and vesicle-rich α-synuclein (αSyn) cytotoxic inclusions. We previously identified stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) as a potential therapeutic target for synucleinopathies. A brain-penetrant SCD inhibitor, YTX-7739, was developed and has entered Phase 1 clinical trials. Here, we report the efficacy of YTX-7739 in reversing pathological αSyn phenotypes in various in vitro and in vivo PD models. In cell-based assays, YTX-7739 decreased αSyn-mediated neuronal death, reversed the abnormal membrane interaction of amplified E46K ("3K") αSyn, and prevented pathological phenotypes in A53T and αSyn triplication patient-derived neurospheres, including dysregulated fatty acid profiles and pS129 αSyn accumulation. In 3K PD-like mice, YTX-7739 crossed the blood-brain barrier, decreased unsaturated fatty acids, and prevented progressive motor deficits. Both YTX-7739 treatment and decreasing SCD activity through deletion of one copy of the SCD1 gene (SKO) restored the physiological αSyn tetramer-to-monomer ratio, dopaminergic integrity, and neuronal survival in 3K αSyn mice. YTX-7739 efficiently reduced pS129 + and PK-resistant αSyn in both human wild-type αSyn and 3K mutant mice similar to the level of 3K-SKO. Together, these data provide further validation of SCD as a PD therapeutic target and YTX-7739 as a clinical candidate for treating human α-synucleinopathies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silke Nuber
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US.
| | - Chee Yeun Chung
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US.
| | | | - Pascal A Bechade
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US
| | - Thomas D McCaffery
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US
| | - Kazuma Shimanaka
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US
| | - Jeonghoon Choi
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
| | - Belle Chang
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
- iNeuro Therapeutics, Cambridge, MA, 02116, US
| | - Waseem Raja
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
| | - Esther Neves
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
| | | | - Xin Jiang
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
| | - Ping Xu
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
| | - Vikram Khurana
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
| | - Ulf Dettmer
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US
| | - Saranna Fanning
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US
| | - Kenneth J Rhodes
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
- Wave Life Sciences, 733 Concord Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, US
| | - Dennis J Selkoe
- Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Fenwood Rd, MA, 02115, Boston, US
| | - Robert H Scannevin
- Yumanity Therapeutics, 40 Guest Street, Boston, MA, 02135, US
- Verge Genomics, 2 Tower Pl, South San Francisco, CA, 94080, US
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