Exploration of fMRI brain responses to oral sucrose after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass in obese yucatan minipigs in relationship with microbiota and metabolomics profiles.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: In most cases, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP) is an efficient intervention to lose weight, change eating behavior and improve metabolic outcomes in obese patients. We hypothesized that weight loss induced by RYGBP in obese Yucatan minipigs would induce specific modifications of the gut-brain axis and neurocognitive responses to oral sucrose stimulation in relationship with food intake control. METHODS: An integrative study was performed after SHAM (n = 8) or RYGBP (n = 8) surgery to disentangle the physiological, metabolic and neurocognitive mechanisms of RYGBP. BOLD fMRI responses to sucrose stimulations at different concentrations, brain mRNA expression, cecal microbiota, and plasma metabolomics were explored 4 months after surgery and integrated with WGCNA analysis. RESULTS: We showed that weight loss induced by RYGBP or SHAM modulated differently the frontostriatal responses to oral sucrose stimulation, suggesting a different hedonic treatment and inhibitory control related to palatable food after RYGBP. The expression of brain genes involved in the serotoninergic and cannabinoid systems were impacted by RYGBP. Cecal microbiota was deeply modified and many metabolite features were differentially increased in RYGBP. Data integration with WGCNA identified interactions between key drivers of OTUs and metabolites features linked to RYGBP. CONCLUSION: This longitudinal study in the obese minipig model illustrates with a systemic and integrative analysis the mid-term consequences of RYGBP on brain mRNA expression, cecal microbiota and plasma metabolites. We confirmed the impact of RYGBP on functional brain responses related to food reward, hedonic evaluation and inhibitory control, which are key factors for the success of anti-obesity therapy and weight loss maintenance.

Brain Responses to Food Choices and Decisions Depend on Individual Hedonic Profiles and Eating Habits in Healthy Young Women.

The way different food consumption habits in healthy normal-weight individuals can shape their emotional and cognitive relationship with food and further disease susceptibility has been poorly investigated. Documenting the individual consumption of Western-type foods (i.e., high-calorie, sweet, fatty, and/or salty) in relation to psychological traits and brain responses to food-related situations can shed light on the early neurocognitive susceptibility to further diseases and disorders. We aimed to explore the relationship between eating habits, psychological components of eating, and brain responses as measured by blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a cognitive food choice task and using functional connectivity (FC) during resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) in a population of 50 healthy normal-weight young women. A Food Consumption Frequency Questionnaire (FCFQ) was used to classify them on the basis of their eating habits and preferences by principal component analysis (PCA). Based on the PCA, we defined two eating habit profiles, namely, prudent-type consumers (PTc, N = 25) and Western-type consumers (WTc, N = 25), i.e., low and high consumers of western diet (WD) foods, respectively. The first two PCA dimensions, PCA1 and PCA2, were associated with different psychological components of eating and brain responses in regions involved in reward and motivation (striatum), hedonic evaluation (orbitofrontal cortex, OFC), decision conflict (anterior cingulate cortex, ACC), and cognitive control of eating (prefrontal cortex). PCA1 was inversely correlated with the FC between the right nucleus accumbens and the left lateral OFC, while PCA2 was inversely correlated with the FC between the right insula and the ACC. Our results suggest that, among a healthy population, distinct eating profiles can be detected, with specific correlates in the psychological components of eating behavior, which are also related to a modulation in the reward and motivation system during food choices. We could detect different patterns in brain functioning at rest, with reduced connectivity between the reward system and the frontal brain region in Western-type food consumers, which might be considered as an initial change toward ongoing modified cortico-striatal control.

Western diet, obesity and bariatric surgery sequentially modulated anxiety, eating patterns and brain responses to sucrose in adult Yucatan minipigs.

Palatable sweet/fatty foods overconsumption is a major risk factor for obesity and eating disorders, also having an impact on neuro-behavioural hedonic and cognitive components comparable to what is described for substance abuse. We hypothesized that Yucatan minipigs would show hedonic, cognitive, and affective neuro-behavioral shifts when subjected to western diet (WD) exposure without weight gain, after the onset of obesity, and finally after weight loss induced by caloric restriction with (RYGB) or without (Sham) gastric bypass. Eating behavior, cognitive and affective abilities were assessed with a spatial discrimination task (holeboard test) and two-choice feed tests. Brain responses to oral sucrose were mapped using 18F-FDG positron emission tomography. WD exposure impaired working memory and led to an "addiction-type" neuronal pattern involving hippocampal and cortical brain areas. Obesity induced anxiety-like behavior, loss of motivation, and snacking-type eating behavior. Weight loss interventions normalized the motivational and affective states but not eating behavior patterns. Brain glucose metabolism increased in gustatory (insula) and executive control (aPFC) areas after weight loss, but RYGB showed higher responses in inhibition-related areas (dorsal striatum). These results showed that diet quality, weight loss, and the type of weight loss intervention differently impacted brain responses to sucrose in the Yucatan minipig model.

Visual Attention Patterns Differ in Dog vs. Cat Interactions With Children With Typical Development or Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Visual social attention is an important part of the social life of many species, including humans, but its patterning may vary between species. Studies on human-pet relationships have revealed that visual attention is also part of such interspecific interactions and that pets are sensitive to the human visual attentional state. It has been argued that domestication and/or repeated experiences with humans have shaped and refined these decoding abilities. Little is known on how the species' evolutionary history may play a role in determining visual attention patterns during interactions, nor how the human's own social skills may influence the animal's attention patterns in human-animal interactions. In the present study, we investigated the visual attention patterns directed to the partner in dog-child and cat-child interactions in their home environment. We also compared these patterns between a group of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and children with typical development. We found that the attention patterns differed according to species, with dogs displaying more gazes and cats more glances toward their human interlocutor, while children showed gazes toward both species. Only slight differences were observed according to the developmental status of children: ASD children displayed much more visual attention with their pet cat than with their pet dog and the same amount of visual attention toward their pet, whatever the species, as typically developing (TD) children. Because humans rely a lot upon visual communication in their own social encounters, where direct gazes play a major role from early on, they may be especially sensitive to the gazing behavior of their dogs. People with ASD, with a less typical pattern of interaction, may be more comfortable with the less "invasive" short glances of cats. These results suggest not only that interspecific communication has to be associated with processing and storing the other species' ways of communicating in order to be successful but also that visual attention patterns during interactions, even when interspecific, are, for a large part, the result of the species' own evolutionary history.

Implementation of a New Food Picture Database in the Context of fMRI and Visual Cognitive Food-Choice Task in Healthy Volunteers.

This pilot study aimed at implementing a new food picture database in the context of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) cognitive food-choice task, with an internal conflict or not, in healthy normal-weight adults. The database contains 170 photographs including starters, main courses, and desserts; it presents a broad-spectrum of energy content and is provided with portion weight and nutritional information. It was tested in 16 participants who evaluated the energy density and gave a liking score for all food pictures via numerical scales. First, volunteers were segregated into two groups according to their eating habits according to a food consumption frequency questionnaire (FCFQ) to assess whether the database might elicit different appreciations according to individual eating habits. Second, participants underwent fMRI cognitive food-choice task (van der Laan et al., 2014), using our picture database, in which they had to choose between high-energy (HE) and low-energy (LE) foods, under a similar liking (SL, foods with similar hedonic appraisals) condition or a different liking (DL, foods with different hedonic appraisals) condition. Participants evaluated correctly the caloric content of dishes (from r = 0.72 to r = 0.79, P < 0.001), confirming a good perception of the caloric discrepancies between food pictures. Two subgroups based on FCFQ followed by a principal component analysis (PCA) and a hierarchical ascendant classification (HAC) were defined, that is, Prudent-type (PTc, N = 9) versus Western-type (WTc, N = 7) consumers, where the WTc group showed higher consumption of HE palatable foods than PTc (P < 0.05). The WTc group showed a higher correlation between liking and caloric evaluation of the food pictures as compared to PTc (r = 0.77 and r = 0.36, respectively, P < 0.001), confirming that food pictures elicited variable responses according to contrasted individual eating habits. The fMRI analyses showed that the DL condition elicited the activation of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), involved in internal conflict monitoring, whereas SL condition did not, and that LE food choice involved high-level cognitive processes with higher activation of the hippocampus (HPC) and fusiform gyrus compared to HE food choice. Overall, this pilot study validated the use of the food picture database and fMRI-based procedure assessing decision-making processing during a food choice cognitive task with and without internal conflict.

Emotional overeating is common and negatively associated with alcohol use in normal-weight female university students.

INTRODUCTION: Eating in response to specific emotional cues was hitherto investigated in relation to weight gain, eating disorders, and psychiatric and addictive disorders. Given the difficulties in treating established obesity, preventive interventions towards normal-weight subjects could be more appropriate and cost effective. In order to design such interventions, it is important to characterize emotional overeating in normal-weight subjects, especially young women. METHODS: Female university students aged 18-24 years with healthy Body Mass Index (comprised between 18.5 and 24.9) were asked to complete questionnaires while attending a medical consultation. Emotional Eating frequency in the last 28 days was assessed together with data on habitual physical activity, drinking patterns, substance abuse, suspected eating disorders and cognitive/behavioural components of eating. Sociodemographic data and tobacco use were also collected. RESULTS: Half of participants reported intermittent Emotional Overeating in the last 28 days, mostly during one to five days in the last 28 days, in response to Anxiety (51.3%), Loneliness (45.1%), Sadness (44.8%), and Happiness (43.6%), and to a lesser extent in response to Tiredness (27.4%) and Anger (14.6%). In multivariate analysis, Distress-Induced Overeating (DIO) correlated positively with inability to resist emotional cues, disordered eating symptoms, and loss of control over food intake. It correlated negatively with moderate and excessive drinking. CONCLUSION: A large proportion of normal-weight female students used intermittent overeating episodes as a time-limited response to emotional states, especially anxiety. DIO was negatively correlated with alcohol use, which suggests two distinct and somewhat exclusive ways of coping with negative emotions. It was higher in the minority of students with disordered eating symptoms and loss of control over food intake, highlighting the need for a systematic screening in all female students entering college.

Maternal Western diet during gestation and lactation modifies adult offspring's cognitive and hedonic brain processes, behavior, and metabolism in Yucatan minipigs.

This study explores the long-term effects of exposure to a maternal Western diet (WD) vs. standard diet (SD) in the Yucatan minipig, on the adult progeny at lean status ( n = 32), and then overweight status. We investigated eating behavior, cognitive abilities, brain basal glucose metabolism, dopamine transporter availability, microbiota activity, blood lipids, and glucose tolerance. Although both groups demonstrated similar cognitive abilities in a holeboard test, WD pigs expressed a higher stress level than did SD pigs (immobility, P < 0.05) and lower performance in an alley maze ( P = 0.06). WD pigs demonstrated lower dopamine transporter binding potential in the hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex ( P < 0.05 for both), as well as a trend in putamen ( P = 0.07), associated with lower basal brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens ( P < 0.05) compared with lean SD pigs. Lean WD pigs demonstrated a lower glucose tolerance than did SD animals (higher glucose peak, P < 0.05) and a tendency to a higher incremental area under the curve of insulin from 0 to 30 minutes after intravenous glucose injection ( P < 0.1). Both groups developed glucose intolerance with overweight, but WD animals were less impacted than SD animals. These results demonstrate that maternal diet shaped the offspring's brain functions and cognitive responses long term, even after being fed a balanced diet from weaning, but behavioral effects were only revealed in WD pigs under anxiogenic situation; however, WD animals seemed to cope better with the obesogenic diet from a metabolic standpoint.-Gautier, Y., Luneau, I., Coquery, N., Meurice, P., Malbert, C.-H., Guerin, S., Kemp, B., Bolhuis, J. E., Clouard, C., Le Huërou-Luron, I., Blat, S., Val-Laillet, D. Maternal Western diet during gestation and lactation modifies adult offspring's cognitive and hedonic brain processes, behavior, and metabolism in Yucatan minipigs.

Social rivalry triggers visual attention in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Visual social attention is central to social functioning and learning and may act as a reinforcer. Social rivalry, which occurs when an individual is excluded from dyadic interactions, can promote interspecific learning by triggering attention. We applied it to an animal-assisted intervention, where the behaviour of ASD children was compared between an experimental (attention shift of the animal trainer from the dog-child to the dog only) and a control (attention maintained on the dyad) groups (study 1). The results show that ASD children are sensitive to the direction of (visual) social attention and may act, physically and visually, in order to regain it. When the animal trainer concentrated on the dog, the overall visual attention of the ASD children increased, suggesting a heightened awareness towards their environment. They oriented more towards the animal trainer and the dog, contrarily to the control group. The repetition of the procedure was even associated with increased joint attention with the animal trainer (study 2). Thus, ASD children do care about and seek human visual attention. They show an ability to adapt their social behaviour, which questions whether their known deficits in social competencies are hard wired or whether the deficits are in their expression.