ArticleBrain structure & function2021
The association between body mass index and brain morphology in children: a population-based study.
Article in Brain structure & function, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 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
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 27 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
- BrainEnrich: Revealing Biological Insights for Imaging-Derived Phenotypes Through Transcriptomic Enrichment.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- Associations of Exposure to Common Plasticizers and Organophosphate Pesticides during Pregnancy and in Childhood with Cognitive Performance in Adolescents: A Population-Based Study.Environmental science & technology · 2026Article
- Brain morphology in Anorexia Nervosa and its subtypes: A multi-cohort study of individual participant data.PLoS medicine · 2026Article
- Attention over vulnerable brain regions associating cerebral palsy disorder and biological markers.Journal of advanced research · 2025Article
- Restrained Eating Features and Brain Morphology: A Pediatric Population-Based Study.The International journal of eating disorders · 2025Article
- Neural correlates of children with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder symptoms: large-scale neuroanatomical analysis of a paediatric population.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Article
- Association of early life cardiovascular risk factors with grey matter structure in young adults in the United Kingdom: the ALSPAC study.EBioMedicine · 2024Article
- Cortical thickness and childhood eating behaviors: differences according to sex and age, and relevance for eating disorders.Eating and weight disorders : EWD · 2024Article
- Biobehavioral susceptibility for obesity in childhood: Behavioral, genetic and neuroimaging studies of appetite.Physiology & behavior · 2023Review
- The longitudinal role of family conflict and neural reward sensitivity in youth's internalizing symptoms.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2023Article
- Replicable brain-phenotype associations require large-scale neuroimaging data.Nature human behaviour · 2023Article
- Paediatric obesity and metabolic syndrome associations with cognition and the brain in youth: Current evidence and future directions.Pediatric obesity · 2023Review
- Sleep Quality Disturbances Are Associated with White Matter Alterations in Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- The Developing Brain: Considering the Multifactorial Effects of Obesity, Physical Activity & Mental Wellbeing in Childhood and Adolescence.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Single-Cell Chromatin Accessibility Data Combined with GWAS Improves Detection of Relevant Cell Types in 59 Complex Phenotypes.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Food-Approach Eating Behaviors and Brain Morphology: The Generation R Study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Article
- Body fat, cardiovascular risk factors and brain structure in school-age children.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Brain morphology is altered in both anorexia nervosa and obesity. However, it is yet unclear if the relationship between Body Mass Index-Standard Deviation Score (BMI-SDS) and brain morphology exists across the BMI-SDS spectrum, or is present only in the extremes. The study involved 3160 9-to-11 year-old children (50.3% female) who participate in Generation R, a population-based study. Structural MRI scans were obtained from all children and FreeSurfer was used to quantify both global and surface-based measures of gyrification and cortical thickness. Body length and weight were measured to calculate BMI. Dutch growth curves were used to calculate BMI-SDS. BMI-SDS was analyzed continuously and in two categories (median split). The relationship between BMI-SDS (range - 3.82 to 3.31) and gyrification showed an inverted-U shape curve in children with both lower and higher BMI-SDS values having lower gyrification in widespread areas of the brain. BMI-SDS had a positive linear association with cortical thickness in multiple brain regions. This study provides evidence for an association between BMI-SDS and brain morphology in a large sample of children from the general population and suggests that a normal BMI during childhood is important for brain development. Future studies could determine whether lifestyle modifications optimize BMI-SDS result in return to more typical patterns of brain morphology.
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.