Sex-dependent influences of obesity on cerebral white matter investigated by diffusion-tensor imaging

Abstract

Several studies have shown that obesity is associated with changes in human brain function and structure. Since women are more susceptible to obesity than men, it seems plausible that neural correlates may also be different. However, this has not been demonstrated so far. To address this issue, we systematically investigated the brain's white matter (WM) structure in 23 lean to obese women (mean age 25.5 y, std 5.1 y; mean body mass index (BMI) 29.5 kg/m2, std 7.3 kg/m2) and 26 lean to obese men (mean age 27.1 y, std 5.0 y; mean BMI 28.8 kg/m2, std 6.8 kg/m2) with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). There was no significant age (p>0.2) or BMI (p>0.7) difference between female and male participants. Using tract-based spatial statistics, we correlated several diffusion parameters including the apparent diffusion coefficient, fractional anisotropy (FA), as well as axial (λ∥) and radial diffusivity (λ⊥) with BMI and serum leptin levels. In female and male subjects, the putative axon marker λ∥ was consistently reduced throughout the corpus callosum, particularly in the splenium (r = -0.62, p