Hypothalamic effective connectivity at rest is associated with body weight and energy homeostasis

Abstract Hunger and satiety drive eating behaviours via changes in brain function. The hypothalamus is a central component of the networks that regulate food intake. Animal research parsed roles lateral (LH) medial (MH) hunger satiety, respectively. Here, we examined how change information flow between human LH MH networks, these interactions are influenced by body mass index (BMI). Forty participants (16 overweight/obese) underwent two resting-state functional MRI scans while being fasted sated. excitatory/inhibitory influence was modelled using spectral dynamic causal modelling. Our results revealed core interacting across homeostatic state weight: subcortical bidirectional connections LH, substantia nigra pars compacta (prSN), cortical top-down inhibition from fronto-parietal temporal areas. During fasting, found higher prSN, whereas prSN received greater cortex. Individuals with BMI showed network dynamics occur irrespective state. findings reveal fasting affects over distributed hypothalamic-midbrain-cortical network. This less sensitive to state-related fluctuations among people obesity.