ArticleObesity (Silver Spring, Md.)2026
Weight Loss After Obesity Disrupts Cognitive Flexibility Through Reinforcement Learning Strategies.
Article in Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Weight Loss After Obesity Disrupts Cognitive Flexibility Through Reinforcement Learning Strategies.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveDespite successful weight loss, many individuals with obesity regain weight, yet cognitive factors in the weight loss state remain unclear. Here, we tested whether obesity induces deficits in cognitive flexibility, a core component of reinforcement learning (RL), after body weight normalizes.
methodsMale and female C57BL/6J mice were exposed to high-fat diet-induced obesity followed by weight loss. Weight loss and control mice were tested on a modified probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) task to assess cognitive flexibility and a progressive-ratio (PR) task to evaluate motivation. RL modeling was applied to dissociate latent decision-making parameters.
resultsPost-weight-loss mice exhibited persistent impairments in PRL efficiency. Males showed reduced late-phase reversal efficiency (p < 0.001), while females showed early-phase inefficiency but later recovery (p < 0.05). RL modeling revealed reduced learning rates in both sexes, indicating impaired value updating despite intact motivation, as PR performance did not differ between groups. Across tasks, food intake remained unchanged, suggesting reduced efficiency reflected cognitive inflexibility rather than diminished appetite.
conclusionsWeight loss after obesity produced sex-specific RL deficits. These findings dissociated motivational drive from cognitive flexibility and highlighted maladaptive decision-making as a feature of the weight loss state. This demonstrates the need for targeted interventions addressing post-weight-loss cognitive barriers.
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.