Nutritional Neurosciences Seminar
| Date/Time: | Friday, 18 Apr 2014 at 9:30 am |
|---|---|
| Location: | 1951 Food Sciences Building |
| Cost: | Free |
| Phone: | 515-294-9166 |
| Channel: | College of Human Sciences |
| Categories: | Lectures |
| Actions: | Download iCal/vCal | Email Reminder |
Summary:
Recent studies suggest that being overweight or obese is related to worse cognitive performance across the lifespan, such as learning and memory or executive function. Consequently, there has been increasing interest in whether higher abdominal adiposity is related to atrophy of gray matter in the brain. Findings are summarized from a recent systematic review on brain atrophy and adiposity in younger (<40 years of age) and older (>40 years of age) participants. Overall, obesity in younger participants is only consistently related to frontal lobe atrophy. In older participants, obesity is consistently related to atrophy in frontal lobe and to a lesser extent temporal lobe, but not hippocampus. These findings suggest that higher adiposity may adversely affect frontal lobe and executive function regardless of age, whereas only older adults with higher adiposity may show temporal lobe atrophy and deficits in learning and memory.