ArticlePediatric obesity2019
Initial evidence for hypothalamic gliosis in children with obesity by quantitative T2 MRI and implications for blood oxygen-level dependent response to glucose ingestion.
Article in Pediatric obesity, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brain structural and functional changes in childhood and adolescent obesity: a systematic review of MRI studies.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Restriction spectrum imaging reveals brain microstructural correlates of obesity risk in early childhood.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Structural and Functional Brain Changes in Children and Adolescents With Obesity.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2025Review
- Update on Hypothalamic Inflammation and Gliosis: Expanding Evidence of Relevance Beyond Obesity.Current obesity reports · 2025Review
- Article
- Associations of radiologic characteristics of the neonatal hypothalamus with early life adiposity gain.Pediatric obesity · 2024Article
- In utero exposure to maternal diabetes or hypertension and childhood hypothalamic gliosis.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2024Article
- The hypothalamus as the central regulator of energy balance and its impact on current and future obesity treatments.Archives of endocrinology and metabolism · 2024Review
- A review of air pollution as a driver of cardiovascular disease risk across the diabetes spectrum.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Review
- Biobehavioral susceptibility for obesity in childhood: Behavioral, genetic and neuroimaging studies of appetite.Physiology & behavior · 2023Review
- The Neurobiology of Eating Behavior in Obesity: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Targets: A Report from the 23rd Annual Harvard Nutrition Obesity Symposium.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2023Article
- The Significance of Hypothalamic Inflammation and Gliosis for the Pathogenesis of Obesity in Humans.Endocrine reviews · 2023Review
- Childhood obesity is linked to putative neuroinflammation in brain white matter, hypothalamus, and striatum.Cerebral cortex communications · 2023Article
- Exposure to Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Prior to 26 Weeks Is Related to the Presence of Mediobasal Hypothalamic Gliosis in Children.Diabetes · 2022Article
- Trends in Gliosis in Obesity, and the Role of Antioxidants as a Therapeutic Alternative.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Obesity-Novel Ways to Seen the Unseen.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Review
- Genetic variation in satiety signaling and hypothalamic inflammation: merging fields for the study of obesity.The Journal of nutritional biochemistry · 2022Review
- Evidence That Hypothalamic Gliosis Is Related to Impaired Glucose Homeostasis in Adults With Obesity.Diabetes care · 2022Article
- Greater radiologic evidence of hypothalamic gliosis predicts adiposity gain in children at risk for obesity.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2021Article
- Adolescent obesity treatments: news, views, and evidence.Archives of endocrinology and metabolism · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveIn adults, hypothalamic gliosis has been documented using quantitative T2 neuroimaging, whereas functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has shown a defective hypothalamic response to nutrients. No studies have yet evaluated these hypothalamic abnormalities in children with obesity.
methodsChildren with obesity and lean controls underwent quantitative MRI measuring T2 relaxation time, along with continuous hypothalamic fMRI acquisition to evaluate early response to glucose ingestion.
resultsChildren with obesity (N = 11) had longer T2 relaxation times, consistent with gliosis, in the mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH) compared to controls (N = 9; P = 0.004). Moreover, there was a highly significant group*region interaction (P = 0.002), demonstrating that signs of gliosis were specific to MBH and not to reference regions. Longer T2 relaxation times correlated with measures of higher adiposity, including visceral fat percentage (P = 0.01). Mean glucose-induced hypothalamic blood oxygen-level dependent signal change did not differ between groups (P = 0.11). However, mean left MBH T2 relaxation time negatively correlated with glucose-induced hypothalamic signal change (P < 0.05).
conclusionImaging signs of hypothalamic gliosis were present in children with obesity and positively associated with more severe adiposity. Children with the strongest evidence for gliosis showed the least activation after glucose ingestion. These initial findings suggest that the hypothalamus is both structurally and functionally affected in childhood obesity.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.