ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
A hypothesis linking the energy demand of the brain to obesity risk.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 52 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brain More Resistant to Energy Restriction Than Body: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
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- Developmental Changes in Brain Cellular Membrane and Energy Metabolism: A Multi-occasionThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Using Metabolic Testing to Personalize Behavioral Obesity Treatment.Obesity science & practice · 2025Article
- The primate gut microbiota contributes to interspecific differences in host metabolism.Microbial genomics · 2024Article
- Adipose development is consistent across hunter-gatherers and diverges from western references.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular reactivity are modified by maturational stage and exercise training status during youth.Experimental physiology · 2023Article
- Early life adversity jointly regulates body-mass index and working memory development.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Precocious puberty under stressful conditions: new understanding and insights from the lessons learnt from international adoptions and the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Review
- Association between executive functions and gross motor skills in overweight/obese and eutrophic preschoolers: cross-sectional study.BMC pediatrics · 2022Article
- Why do humans undergo an adiposity rebound? Exploring links with the energetic costs of brain development in childhood using MRI-based 4D measures of total cerebral blood flow.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2022Article
- Cortical Oxygenation during a Motor Task to Evaluate Recovery in Subacute Stroke Patients: A Study with Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.Neurology international · 2022Article
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- Amount and type of physical activity as predictors of growth in executive functions, attentional control, and social self-control across 4 years of elementary school.Developmental science · 2022Article
- Postmortem mitochondrial membrane permeability transition assessment of apoptotic cell death in brain and liver of insulin resistant, ovariectomised rats.IBRO neuroscience reports · 2021Article
- Brain structural abnormalities in obesity: relation to age, genetic risk, and common psychiatric disorders : Evidence through univariate and multivariate mega-analysis including 6420 participants from the ENIGMA MDD working group.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- Gene expression atlas of energy balance brain regions.JCI insight · 2021Article
- Breakfast: A Crucial Meal for Adolescents' Cognitive Performance According to Their Nutritional Status. The Cogni-Action Project.Nutrients · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The causes of obesity are complex and multifactorial. We propose that one unconsidered but likely important factor is the energetic demand of brain development, which could constrain energy available for body growth and other functions, including fat deposition. Humans are leanest during early childhood and regain body fat in later childhood. Children reaching this adiposity rebound (AR) early are at risk for adult obesity. In aggregate data, the developing brain consumes a lifetime peak of 66% of resting energy expenditure in the years preceding the AR, and brain energy use is inversely related to body weight gain from infancy until puberty. Building on this finding, we hypothesize that individual variation in childhood brain energy expenditure will help explain variation in the timing of the AR and subsequent obesity risk. The idea that brain energetics constrain fat deposition is consistent with evidence that genes that elevate BMI are expressed in the brain and mediate a trade-off between the size of brain structures and BMI. Variability in energy expended on brain development and function could also help explain widely documented inverse relationships between the BMI and cognitive abilities. We estimate that variability in brain energetics could explain the weight differential separating children at the 50th and 70th BMI-for-age centiles immediately before the AR. Our model proposes a role for brain energetics as a driver of variation within a population's BMI distribution and suggests that educational interventions that boost global brain energy use during childhood could help reduce the burden of obesity.
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Registered trials
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