Neural Noise

MEG connectivity and neural disinhibition in youth with elevated BMI

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  • Elevated body mass index in youth is associated with neural disinhibition and internetwork functional dysconnectivity.1
  • MEG reveals these connectivity and disinhibition patterns.1 1

Weekly enrichment (2026-07-20)

  • The study (Reichelt et al., Clinical Neurophysiology 183, 2111476, 2026) used magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 30 children and adolescents aged 8–19 years during a naturalistic viewing paradigm (“Inscapes”) in a pseudo-resting state.2
  • Participants were split by standardized BMI: those with zBMI below 1 in one group and zBMI at or above 1 in the other, comparing neurophysiological markers between lower- and higher-BMI youth.2
  • Analyses followed the DISCOVER-EEG biomarker battery (oscillatory power, aperiodic components, and connectivity), implemented for MEG using the FieldTrip toolbox.2
  • Higher BMI was associated with widespread gamma hyperactivity and a shallower aperiodic spectral exponent and reduced offset, surrogate markers of neural disinhibition and an imbalance between excitation and inhibition.2
  • Connectivity showed a characteristic pattern of low-frequency (delta/theta) hypoconnectivity alongside high-frequency (gamma) hyperconnectivity between intrinsic networks including the default mode, salience, and attention networks.2
  • Graph-theoretic measures indicated reduced global efficiency, suggesting less effective large-scale neural communication in the higher-BMI group.3
  • Weakened low-frequency coupling appeared between the salience network and motivation-related networks, while stronger high-frequency coupling appeared between the default mode and central executive networks.4
  • The authors frame these as the first MEG evidence of E/I dysregulation and network reorganization in youth with elevated BMI, potentially underlying behavioral rigidity and difficulty adopting healthier eating behaviors.3

Footnotes

  1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388245725013288?dgcid=rss_sd_all ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2025.2111476 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.18.590064 ↩ ↩2

  4. https://www.psypost.org/higher-body-mass-index-in-youth-linked-to-altered-brain-connectivity/ ↩

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