’Talkative’ brain regions create self-control challenges for teens with obesity

Share on: Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn In teens with obesity problems, the brain regions that process rewards are strongly connected, or more likely to "talk” to each other. These regions, however, are less connected to those involved in memory and executive functioning-such as decision-making, attention and behavioral control-that could make teens more sensitive to rewards like junk foods, according to a new University of Michigan study. Researchers say teens with obesity have a hard time inhibiting behavior regarding those rewards. The findings, published in the journal Obesity, are the latest effort to help lower obesity rates among teens. This public health threat of overconsumption of unhealthy foods has been a crisis worldwide, and it has worsened during the pandemic. Obesity appears to be related to stronger connectivity within and between regions implicated in determining the salience of stimuli, which may have implications for reward processing. Lower connectivity between salience network and executive function network regions may suggest that executive-control efforts are going "off-line” when salience and reward-processing regions are engaged in adolescents who have obesity.