Mesolimbic white matter connectivity mediates the preference for sweet food

Abstract

Dopaminergic brain structures like the nucleus accumbens (NAc) are thought to encode the incentive salience of palatable foods motivating appetitive behaviour. Animal studies have identified neural networks mediating the regulation of hedonic feeding that comprise connections of the NAc with the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the lateral hypothalamus (LH). Here, we investigated how structural connectivity of these pathways relates to individual variability in decisions on sweet food consumption in humans. We therefore combined probabilistic tractography on diffusion imaging data from 45 overnight fasted lean to overweight participants with real decisions about high and low sugar food consumption. Across all individuals, sugar preference and connectivity strength were not directly related, however, multiple regression analysis revealed interaction of mesolimbic structure and sugar preference to depend on individuals’ BMI score. In overweight individuals (BMI: ≥25 kg/m², N = 22) higher sugar preference was thereby specifically related to stronger connectivity within the VTA-NAc pathway while the opposite pattern emerged in participants with normal BMI (BMI: <25 kg/m², N = 23). Our structural results complement previous functional findings on the critical role of the human mesolimbic system for regulating hedonic eating in overweight individuals.