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Physiology

Visceral adiposity and insular networks: associations with food craving

International Journal of Obesity volume 43, pages 503–511 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/objectives

Accumulation of visceral adiposity can disrupt the brain’s sensitivity to interoceptive feedback, which is coded in the insula. This study aimed to test the link between visceral fat and the functional connectivity of two insulae regions relevant for eating behavior: the middle-dorsal insula (mIns), which codes homeostatic changes, and the rostral insula (rIns), which codes stable representations of food properties. We also assessed the impact of visceral adiposity-associated insulae networks on food craving.

Subjects/methods

Seventy-five adults ranging in weight status (normal and excess weight) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and subjective food craving measures. We examined the association between visceral fat and seed-based functional connectivity of the mIns and the rIns, controlling for BMI, age, and sex, using multiple regressions in SPM8. We also tested if visceral fat mediated the association between insulae connectivity and food craving.

Results

Higher visceral adiposity was associated with decreased connectivity between the mIns and a cluster involving the hypothalamus and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. Decreased connectivity in this network was associated with greater food craving, a relation mediated by visceral adiposity. Visceral adiposity was also associated with increased connectivity between the mIns and the middle frontal gyri and the right intraparietal cortex, and between the rIns and the right amygdala.

Conclusions

Accumulation of visceral adiposity is linked to disrupted functional connectivity within the mIns and rIns networks. Furthermore, the link between the mIns network and food craving is mediated by visceral fat. Findings suggest that visceral fat disrupts insula coding of bodily homeostatic signals, which may boost externally driven food cravings.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Cristian Rojas and Ismael Muela for assistance in recruitment and data collection, and thank all participants in the study.

Funding

This study has been funded by the Project Grant NEUROCOBE (PI-HUM-6635) from the Andalusian Council of Innovation, Science and Industry. Dr. CS-M is funded by a ‘Miguel Servet’ contract (CPII16/00048), and Dr. OC-R is funded by a ‘Sara Borrell’ postdoctoral contract (CD14/00246) from the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) and by a “PERIS” postdoctoral contract (SLT006/17/00236) from the Catalan Government. MC and JFN are funded by FPU predoctoral fellowships (FPU13/02141 and FPU13/00669) from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. CIBERSAM and CIBEROBN are both initiatives of ISCIII.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychiatry Department, Bellvitge University Hospital, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL, Barcelona, Spain

    Oren Contreras-Rodríguez, Marta Cano, Fernando Fernández-Aranda, José Manuel Menchón & Carles Soriano-Mas

  2. Ciber en Salud Mental (CIBERSAM-17), Instituto Salud Carlos III, Barcelona, Spain

    Oren Contreras-Rodríguez, Marta Cano, José Manuel Menchón & Carles Soriano-Mas

  3. Department of Clinical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Marta Cano, Fernando Fernández-Aranda & José Manuel Menchón

  4. Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Raquel Vilar-López, Juan Verdejo-Román & Juan F. Navas

  5. Departamento de Personalidad, Evaluación y Tratamiento Psicológico, Granada, Spain

    Raquel Vilar-López & Cristina Martín-Pérez

  6. Red de Trastornos Adictivos, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Raquel Vilar-López, Cristina Martín-Pérez & Antonio Verdejo-García

  7. Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    Jacqueline Schmidt Rio-Valle

  8. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Juan F. Navas

  9. Ciber en Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBEROBN), Instituto Salud Carlos III, Barcelona, Spain

    Fernando Fernández-Aranda

  10. Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Health Sciences, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Carles Soriano-Mas

  11. School of Psychological Sciences and Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Antonio Verdejo-García

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  1. Oren Contreras-Rodríguez
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Correspondence to Oren Contreras-Rodríguez or Carles Soriano-Mas.

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Contreras-Rodríguez, O., Cano, M., Vilar-López, R. et al. Visceral adiposity and insular networks: associations with food craving. Int J Obes 43, 503–511 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-018-0173-3

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