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Brown adipose tissue triglyceride content association with brain grey matter volumes

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Brown adipose tissue triglyceride content association with brain grey matter volumes

Besides generating heat brown adipose tissue has been shown to have connections to metabolism and the amount of BAT is correlated to many obesity related factors such as body mass index. According to previous studies weight and type 2 diabetes are associated with cognitive impairment and dementia. The purpose of this study was to study the association between brown adipose tissue structure described as triglyceride content and brain grey matter volumes in regions associated with obesity and insulin resistance. Data was collected from two previous studies and the study population consisted of 40 healthy subjects who were screened for cardiovascular diseases and glucose metabolism disturbances. Brown and white adipose tissue triglyceride contents were determined using MRI and 1H MRS imaging. Brain volumes were estimated using automated tools and normalized for subject brain size before analysis. Two partial correlation models were made, one for whole brain unnormalized volume and another for age. Statistically significant positive correlation was seen between white adipose tissue triglyceride content and left nucleus accumbens, right orbitofrontal gyrus and putamen in the model correlated for age. There was mild negative correlation to brain grey matter volumes and frontal and temporal gyri. Brown adipose tissue triglyceride content was positively correlated to grey matter volume of amygdala and orbitofrontal gyri and negatively to grey matter volume of cerebellum and insula. When controlled for unnormalized brain volume brown adipose tissue triglyceride content was mildly positively correlated to brain grey matter volume of putamen and hippocampus and negatively correlated to caudatus in which the correlation was statistically significant. The results are in line with previous studies which indicate that obesity is related to brain atrophy in certain regions. Higher white adipose tissue triglyceride content seems to associate with smaller brain volume in areas related to cognition and memory. Additionally, higher white adipose tissue triglyceride content seems to associate with brain areas related to reward system which supports the idea that obesity has structural and functional effects on the brain reward system. This study also indicates that brown adipose tissue may have some opposite effects in some of these brain areas.

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