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Sleeve Gastrectomy Rescuing the Altered Functional Connectivity of Lateral but Not Medial Hypothalamus in Subjects with Obesity

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Abstract

Background

Lateral and medial hypothalamus (LH and MH) play important roles in energy balance. Changed hypothalamic function has been found in subjects with obesity. However, the effect of bariatric surgery on the function of the two sub-regions has been poorly investigated.

Methods

Thirty-eight subjects with obesity and 34 age- and sex-matched normal-weight controls were included. Seventeen of the 38 subjects underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data and metabolic parameters were collected to investigate functional connectivity networks of the two hypothalamic sub-regions as well as the influence of sleeve gastrectomy on the two networks in subjects with obesity.

Results

Compared to normal-weight controls, pre-surgical subjects had increased functional connectivity (FC) in the reward region (putamen) within the LH network, and increased FC in somatosensory cortical area (insula), as well as decreased FC in the cognitive control regions (prefrontal regions) within the MH network. After the surgery, post-surgical FC of the putamen within the LH network changed towards the patterns found in the control group. Furthermore, the changes in fasting glucose before and after the surgery were associated with the changes in FC of the putamen within the LH network.

Conclusions

The FC within the LH and MH networks were changed in subjects with obesity. Part of these altered FC was rescued after the surgery.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to gratefully thank the patients and healthy volunteers taking part in this study.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 81471741, 81471728, 81671770].

Author information

Author notes

  1. Panlong Li and Han Shan contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, Henan, China

    Panlong Li & Demin Li

  2. Division of Nuclear Technology and Applications, Beijing Engineering Research Center of Radiographic Techniques and Equipment, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Panlong Li, Binbin Nie, Hua Liu & Baoci Shan

  3. School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Panlong Li, Binbin Nie, Hua Liu & Baoci Shan

  4. Department of Radiology, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Han Shan & Lin Ma

  5. Department of General Surgery, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, China

    Guanglong Dong & Yulin Guo

  6. Department of Endocrinology, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, China

    Jin Du

  7. Department of General Surgery, The General Hospital of Chinese People’s Armed Police Forces, Beijing, 100039, China

    Hongkai Gao

  8. CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Shanghai, China

    Baoci Shan

Authors
  1. Panlong Li
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  2. Han Shan
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  3. Binbin Nie
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  4. Hua Liu
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  7. Jin Du
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lin Ma, Demin Li or Baoci Shan.

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Ethical Statement and Consent Statement

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Li, P., Shan, H., Nie, B. et al. Sleeve Gastrectomy Rescuing the Altered Functional Connectivity of Lateral but Not Medial Hypothalamus in Subjects with Obesity. OBES SURG 29, 2191–2199 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-019-03822-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-019-03822-7

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