{"doi":"10.3389/fnut.2024.1387514","title":"Genetic associations with neural reward responsivity to food cues in children","abstract":"Objective To test associations of candidate obesity-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and obesity polygenic risk scores (PRS) with neural reward reactivity to food cues. Methods After consuming a pre-load meal, 9–12-year-old children completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm with exposure to food and non-food commercials. Genetic exposures included FTO rs9939609, MC4R rs571312, and a pediatric-specific obesity PRS. A targeted region-of-interest (ROI) analysis for 7 bilateral reward regions and a whole-brain analysis were conducted. Independent associations between each genetic factor and reward responsivity to food cues in each ROI were evaluated using linear models. Results Analyses included 151 children ( M = 10.9 years). Each FTO rs9939609 obesity risk allele was related to a higher food-cue-related response in the right lateral hypothalamus after controlling for covariates including the current BMI Z -score (p < 0.01), however, the association did not remain significant after applying the multiple testing correction. MC4R rs571312 and the PRS were not related to heightened food-cue-related reward responsivity in any examined regions. The whole-brain analysis did not identify additional regions of food-cue-related response related to the examined genetic factors. Conclusion Children genetically at risk for obesity, as indicated by the FTO genotype, may be predisposed to higher food-cue-related reward responsivity in the lateral hypothalamus in the sated state, which, in turn, could contribute to overconsumption. Clinical trial registration https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03766191 , identifier NCT03766191.","journal":"Frontiers in Nutrition","year":2024,"id":481568,"datarank":0.10697042366656663,"base_score":0.6931471805599453,"endowment":0.6931471805599453,"self_citation_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citation_network_contribution":0.002998346582574827,"self_endowment_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citer_contribution":0.002998346582574827,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":1,"citers_with_citation_signal":1,"citers_with_endowment":1,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9499,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT03766191"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1109099,"name":"Timothy J. Renier","orcid":"0000-0001-8949-0090","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1095159,"name":"Delaina D. Carlson","orcid":"0009-0000-1928-6967","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1095589,"name":"Grace A. Ballarino","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1095588,"name":"Reina K. Lansigan","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":276994,"name":"Meghan L. Meyer","orcid":"0000-0002-9834-5925","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1082,"name":"Ruth J. F. Loos","orcid":"0000-0002-8532-5087","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":348315,"name":"Jennifer A. Emond","orcid":"0000-0001-8684-7330","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":318785,"name":"Travis D. Masterson","orcid":"0000-0002-5470-4041","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":348316,"name":"Diane Gilbert‐Diamond","orcid":"0000-0003-3560-7171","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":958539,"name":"Dabin Yeum","orcid":"0000-0001-9575-4849","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":83,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:07:10.067421Z","pmid":"39385774","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":[]}