Elevated body-mass index is associated with reduced white matter integrity in two large independent cohorts

Jonathan Repple; Nils Opel; Susanne Meinert; Ronny Redlich; Tim Hahn; Nils R Winter; Claas Kaehler; Daniel Emden; Ramona Leenings; Dominik Grotegerd; Dario Zaremba; Christian Bürger; Katharina Förster; Katharina Dohm; Verena Enneking; Elisabeth J Leehr; Joscha Böhnlein; Greta Karliczek; Walter Heindel; Harald Kugel; Jochen Bauer; Volker Arolt; Udo Dannlowski

doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.03.007

Elevated body-mass index is associated with reduced white matter integrity in two large independent cohorts

Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2018 May:91:179-185. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.03.007. Epub 2018 Mar 14.

Authors

Jonathan Repple¹, Nils Opel¹, Susanne Meinert¹, Ronny Redlich¹, Tim Hahn¹, Nils R Winter¹, Claas Kaehler¹, Daniel Emden¹, Ramona Leenings¹, Dominik Grotegerd¹, Dario Zaremba¹, Christian Bürger¹, Katharina Förster¹, Katharina Dohm¹, Verena Enneking¹, Elisabeth J Leehr¹, Joscha Böhnlein¹, Greta Karliczek¹, Walter Heindel², Harald Kugel², Jochen Bauer², Volker Arolt¹, Udo Dannlowski³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Germany.
² Department of Clinical Radiology, University of Münster, Germany.
³ Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Germany. Electronic address: dannlow@uni-muenster.de.

PMID: 29571075
DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.03.007

Abstract

Obesity has been associated with a variety of neurobiological alterations. Recent neuroimaging research has pointed to the relevance of brain structural and functional alterations in the development of obesity. However, while the role of gray matter atrophy in obesity has been evidenced in several well powered studies, large scale evidence for altered white matter integrity in obese subjects is still absent. With this study, we therefore aimed to investigate potential associations between white matter abnormalities and body mass index (BMI) in two large independent samples of healthy adults. Associations between BMI values and whole brain fractional anisotropy (FA) were investigated in two independent cohorts: A sample of n = 369 healthy subjects from the Münster Neuroimaging Cohort (MNC), as well as a public available sample of n = 1064 healthy subjects of the Humane Connectome Project (HCP) were included in the present study. Tract based spatial statistics (TBSS) analyses of BMI on whole brain FA were conducted including age and sex as nuisance covariates using the FMRIB library (FSL Version 5.0). Threshold-free cluster enhancement was applied to control for multiple comparisons. In both samples higher BMI was significantly associated with strong and widespread FA reductions. These effects were most pronounced in the corpus callosum, bilateral posterior thalamic radiation, bilateral internal capsule and external capsule, bilateral inferior longitudinal fasciculus and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. The association was found to be independent of age, sex and other cardiovascular risk factors. No significant positive associations between BMI and FA occurred. With this highly powered study, we provide robust evidence for globally reduced white matter integrity associated with elevated BMI including replication in an independent sample. The present work thus points out the relevance of white matter alterations as a neurobiological correlate of obesity.

Keywords: BMI; DTI; Fractional anisotropy; Obesity; White matter.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Anisotropy
Body Mass Index
Brain / physiology
Cohort Studies
Connectome
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Female
Gray Matter / physiology
Healthy Volunteers
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Obesity / complications
Obesity / physiopathology*
White Matter / physiology*