{"doi":"10.3389/fnhum.2019.00464","title":"Neuroinflammation and White Matter Alterations in Obesity Assessed by Diffusion Basis Spectrum Imaging","abstract":"Human obesity is associated with low-grade chronic systemic inflammation, alterations in brain structure and function, and cognitive impairment. Rodent models of obesity show that high-calorie diets cause brain inflammation (neuroinflammation) in multiple regions, including the hippocampus, and impairments in hippocampal-dependent memory tasks. To determine if similar effects exist in humans with obesity, we applied Diffusion Basis Spectrum Imaging (DBSI) to evaluate neuroinflammation and axonal integrity. We examined diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging data in two independent cohorts of obese and non-obese individuals (Cohort 1: 25 obese/21 non-obese; Cohort 2: 18 obese/41 non-obese). We applied Tract-based Spatial Statistics to allow whole-brain white matter (WM) analyses and compare DBSI-derived isotropic and anisotropic diffusion measures between the obese and non-obese groups. In both cohorts, the obese group had significantly greater DBSI-derived restricted fraction (DBSI-RF; an indicator of neuroinflammation-related cellularity), and significantly lower DBSI-derived fiber fraction (DBSI-FF; an indicator of apparent axonal density) in several WM tracts (all corrected p < 0.05). Moreover, using region of interest analyses, average DBSI-RF and DBSI-FF values in the hippocampus were significantly greater and lower, respectively, in obese relative to non-obese individuals (Cohort 1: p = 0.045; Cohort 2: p = 0.008). Hippocampal DBSI-FF and DBSI-RF and amygdalar DBSI-FF metrics related to cognitive performance in Cohort 2. In conclusion, these findings suggest that greater neuroinflammation-related cellularity and lower apparent axonal density are associated with human obesity and cognitive performance. Future studies are warranted to determine a potential role for neuroinflammation in obesity-related cognitive impairment.","journal":"Frontiers in Human Neuroscience","year":2020,"id":55279,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":94,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9585,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":287227,"name":"Tatianna Murphy","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285664,"name":"Jeremy F. Strain","orcid":"0000-0002-8381-8646","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287228,"name":"Jerrel Rutlin","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285665,"name":"Peng Sun","orcid":"0000-0002-9697-4656","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287229,"name":"Olga Neyman","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287230,"name":"Nitya Sreevalsan","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":259385,"name":"Joshua S. Shimony","orcid":"0000-0002-6228-776X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":226074,"name":"Beau M. Ances","orcid":"0000-0003-3862-7397","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285666,"name":"Sheng‐Kwei Song","orcid":"0000-0003-1050-7449","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285667,"name":"Tamara Hershey","orcid":"0000-0001-7549-0698","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285668,"name":"Sarah A. Eisenstein","orcid":"0000-0003-3549-0508","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285663,"name":"Amjad Samara","orcid":"0000-0002-6001-7395","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":89,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:04:59.506324Z","pmid":"31992978","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}