ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2023
Obesity is associated with decreased gray matter volume in children: a longitudinal study.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 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
26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 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
- Obesity-related differences in amygdala and hippocampal volume and metabolism before and after a placebo-controlled antidepressant trial in major depressive disorder.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Effects of obesity on brain health and cognition.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2026Review
- Body Mass Index and Dietary Self-Regulation Are Associated with Attenuated Error Monitoring in Young Adults.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Weight gain and brain development in the ABCD study cohort: A decade of insight and the road ahead.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Review
- Altered effective connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and caudate in children with overweight and obesity.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Article
- Nonlinear associations between body mass index and brain microstructure across adolescence in the ABCD Study.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- An Investigation of the Correlation Between Total Intracranial Volume and Body Mass Index.Saudi medical journal · 2026Article
- Causal relationship between obesity, leptin, and brain structure and functional connectivity: evidence based on bidirectional and mediation mendelian randomisation analyses.Nutrition & metabolism · 2026Article
- Oxidative Stress, Antioxidant Cofactor Micronutrients, and Cognitive Outcomes in Childhood Obesity: Mechanisms, Evidence, and Therapeutic Opportunities.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- 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
- Volumetric brain alterations associated with a high-fat, high-fructose obesogenic diet: Insights from cross-sectional and longitudinal MRI in mice.Biochemical and biophysical research communications · 2025Article
- Teenagers with Obesity at the Gym: Recommendations for Physical Activity, Diet, and Supplementation-A Narrative Review.Nutrients · 2025Review
- Association of early life cardiovascular risk factors with grey matter structure in young adults in the United Kingdom: the ALSPAC study.EBioMedicine · 2024Article
- Adiponectin deficiency is a critical factor contributing to cognitive dysfunction in obese mice after sevoflurane exposure.Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Neural correlates of obesity across the lifespan.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Effect of Preadolescents' Obesity on Inhibitory Control During Stop-Signal Task: A Functional EEG Network Study.IEEE open journal of engineering in medicine and biology · 2024Article
- FTO variation and early frontostriatal brain development in children.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2024Article
- The interconnection between obesity and executive function in adolescence: The role of the gut microbiome.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Is there a role for higher cognitive processes in the development of obesity in humans?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
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 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Childhood obesity has become a global health problem. Previous studies showed that childhood obesity is associated with brain structural differences relative to controls. However, few studies have been performed with longitudinal evaluations of brain structural developmental trajectories in childhood obesity. We employed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis to assess gray matter (GM) volume at baseline and 2-year follow-up in 258 obese children (OB) and 265 normal weight children (NW), recruited as part of the National Institutes of Health Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study. Significant group × time effects on GM volume were observed in the prefrontal lobe, thalamus, right precentral gyrus, caudate, and parahippocampal gyrus/amygdala. OB compared with NW had greater reductions in GM volume in these regions over the 2-year period. Body mass index (BMI) was negatively correlated with GM volume in prefrontal lobe and with matrix reasoning ability at baseline and 2-year follow-up. In OB, Picture Test was positively correlated with GM volume in the left orbital region of the inferior frontal gyrus (OFCinf_L) at baseline and was negatively correlated with reductions in OFCinf_L volume (2-year follow-up vs. baseline). These findings indicate that childhood obesity is associated with GM volume reduction in regions involved with reward evaluation, executive function, and cognitive performance.
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.