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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrigenomics
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1387514
This article is part of the Research Topic Addictions and Eating Behavior View all 8 articles

Genetic associations with neural reward responsivity to food cues in children

Provisionally accepted
Dabin Yeum Dabin Yeum 1*Timothy J. Renier Timothy J. Renier 1Delaina D. Carlson Delaina D. Carlson 2Grace A. Ballarino Grace A. Ballarino 2Reina Kato Lansigan Reina Kato Lansigan 2Meghan L. Meyer Meghan L. Meyer 3Ruth Loos Ruth Loos 4,5Jennifer A. Emond Jennifer A. Emond 2,6Travis Masterson Travis Masterson 7Diane Gilbert-Diamond Diane Gilbert-Diamond 1,2
  • 1 Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Lebanon, New Hampshire, United States
  • 2 Department of Pediatrics, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Lebanon, New Hampshire, United States
  • 3 Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States
  • 4 Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Capital Region of Denmark, Denmark
  • 5 Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States
  • 6 Department of Biomedical Data Science, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Lebanon, New Hampshire, United States
  • 7 Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    To test associations of candidate obesity-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and obesity polygenic risk scores (PRS) with neural reward reactivity to food cues.After consuming a pre-load meal, 9-12-year-old children completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm with exposure to food and non-food commercials. Genetic exposures included FTO rs9939609, MC4R rs571312, and a pediatric-specific obesity PRS. A targeted region-of-interest (ROI) analysis for 7 bilateral reward regions and a whole-brain analysis were conducted. Independent associations between each genetic factor and reward responsivity to food cues in each ROI were evaluated using linear models.Analyses included 151 children (M=10.9 years). Each FTO rs9939609 obesity risk allele was related to a higher food-cue-related response in the right lateral hypothalamus after controlling for covariates including the current BMI Z-score (P<0.01), however, the association did not remain significant after applying the multiple testing correction. MC4R rs571312 and the PRS were not related to heightened food-cue-related reward responsivity in any examined regions. The whole-brain analysis did not identify additional regions of food-cue-related response related to the examined genetic factors.Children genetically at risk for obesity, as indicated by the FTO genotype, may be predisposed to higher food-cue-related reward responsivity in the lateral hypothalamus in the sated state, which, in turn, could contribute to overconsumption.

    Keywords: food cues, fMRI, Polygenic risk score, Children, Genotype, Reward

    Received: 19 Feb 2024; Accepted: 10 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Yeum, Renier, Carlson, Ballarino, Kato Lansigan, Meyer, Loos, Emond, Masterson and Gilbert-Diamond. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Dabin Yeum, Department of Epidemiology, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Lebanon, 03756, New Hampshire, United States

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