ArticleMolecular psychiatry2016
Weight loss after bariatric surgery normalizes brain opioid receptors in morbid obesity.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03528044 (Evaluation and Follow up of Emotional Regulation, Cognition, Impulsivity and Reward System in Obesity, and Determination of Its Biopsychosocial Risk Factors), which is not on this map. Cited by 48 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Evaluation and Follow up of Emotional Regulation, Cognition, Impulsivity and Reward System in Obesity, and Determination of Its Biopsychosocial Risk Factors: A Prospective Study of Obese Patients Before and After Bariatric Surgery
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brain dopamine receptor system is not altered in obesity: Bayesian and frequentist meta-analyses.Human brain mapping · 2023Pooled it
- Effects of bariatric surgery and dietary interventions for obesity on brain neurotransmitter systems and metabolism: A systematic review of positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) studies.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2023Pooled it
- PET/fMRI demonstrates that bariatric surgery may reverse striatal dopaminergic dysfunction in women with obesity.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Early Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Brain Functionality.Journal of metabolic and bariatric surgery · 2025Review
- Anorexia nervosa is associated with higher brain mu-opioid receptor availability.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Central dopamine receptors: Radiotracers unveiling the Role of dopaminergic tone in obesity.Journal of molecular medicine (Berlin, Germany) · 2025Review
- The Role of Pro-Opiomelanocortin Derivatives in the Development of Type 2 Diabetes-Associated Myocardial Infarction: Possible Links with Prediabetes.Biomedicines · 2024Review
- Article
- Integration of Endogenous Opioid System Research in the Interprofessional Diagnosis and Treatment of Obesity and Eating Disorders.Advances in neurobiology · 2024Article
- Opioid Analgesics after Bariatric Surgery: A Scoping Review to Evaluate Physiological Risk Factors for Opioid-Related Harm.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Associations between socioeconomic status and white matter microstructure in children: indirect effects via obesity and cognition.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- Obesity risk is associated with brain glucose uptake and insulin resistance.European journal of endocrinology · 2022Article
- Impact of Nutrition, Microbiota Transplant and Weight Loss Surgery on Dopaminergic Alterations in Parkinson's Disease and Obesity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Use of physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling to inform dosing of the opioid analgesics fentanyl and methadone in children with obesity.CPT: pharmacometrics & systems pharmacology · 2022Article
- The Effect of Gastric Sleeve Resection on Menstrual Pattern and Ovulation in Premenopausal Women with Classes III-IV Obesity.Obesity surgery · 2022Article
- Obesity risk is associated with altered cerebral glucose metabolism and decreased μ-opioid and CBInternational journal of obesity (2005) · 2022Article
- The Role of Positron Emission Tomography in Bariatric Surgery Research: a Review.Obesity surgery · 2021Review
- Preoperative brain μ-opioid receptor availability predicts weight development following bariatric surgery in women.JCI insight · 2021Article
- Acute acetate administration increases endogenous opioid levels in the human brain: A [Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2021Article
- Mesolimbic opioid-dopamine interaction is disrupted in obesity but recovered by weight loss following bariatric surgery.Translational psychiatry · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Positron emission tomography (PET) studies suggest opioidergic system dysfunction in morbid obesity, while evidence for the role of the dopaminergic system is less consistent. Whether opioid dysfunction represents a state or trait in obesity remains unresolved, but could be assessed in obese subjects undergoing weight loss. Here we measured brain μ-opioid receptor (MOR) and dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) availability in 16 morbidly obese women twice-before and 6 months after bariatric surgery-using PET with [(11)C]carfentanil and [(11)C]raclopride. Data were compared with those from 14 lean control subjects. Receptor-binding potentials (BPND) were compared between the groups and between the pre- and postoperative scans among the obese subjects. Brain MOR availability was initially lower among obese subjects, but weight loss (mean=26.1 kg, s.d.=7.6 kg) reversed this and resulted in ~23% higher MOR availability in the postoperative versus preoperative scan. Changes were observed in areas implicated in reward processing, including ventral striatum, insula, amygdala and thalamus (P's<0.005). Weight loss did not influence D2R availability in any brain region. Taken together, the endogenous opioid system plays an important role in the pathophysiology of human obesity. Because bariatric surgery and concomitant weight loss recover downregulated MOR availability, lowered MOR availability is associated with an obese phenotype and may mediate excessive energy uptake. Our results highlight that understanding the opioidergic contribution to overeating is critical for developing new treatments for obesity.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.