Influences of hunger, satiety and oral glucose on functional brain connectivity: A multimethod resting state fMRI study.

Neuroscience. 2018 Apr 30;:

Authors: Al-Zubaidi A, Heldmann M, Mertins A, Jauch-Chara K, Münte TF

Abstract
A major regulatory task of the organism is to keep brain functions relatively constant in spite of metabolic changes (e.g., hunger vs. satiety) or availability of energy (e.g., glucose administration). Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) can reveal resulting changes in brain function but previous studies have focused mostly on the hypothalamus. Therefore, we took a whole brain approach and examined 24 healthy normal-weight men once after 36 hours of fasting and once in a satiated state (six meals over the course of 36 hours). At the end of each treatment, rs-fMRI was recorded before and after the oral administration of 75 g of glucose. We calculated local connectivity (regional homogeneity [ReHo]), global connectivity (degree of centrality [DC]), and amplitude (fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation [fALFF]) maps from the rs-fMRI data. We found that glucose administration reduced all measures selectively in the left supplementary motor area and increased ReHo and fALFF in the right middle and superior frontal gyri. For fALFF, we observed a significant interaction between metabolic states and glucose in the left thalamus. This interaction was driven by a fALFF increase after glucose treatment in the hunger relative to the satiety condition. Our results indicate that fALFF analysis is the most sensitive measure to detect effects of metabolic states on resting state brain activity. Moreover, we show that multimethod rs-fMRI provides an unbiased approach to identify spontaneous brain activity associated with changes in homeostasis and caloric intake.

PMID: 29723574 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]