# Dynamic fronto‐amygdalar interactions underlying emotion‐regulation deficits in women at higher weight

## TL;DR

The study found that women with higher weight have altered brain connections involved in regulating emotions, which may lead to difficulties in managing negative feelings.

## Contribution

The study reveals novel directional differences in fronto-amygdalar connectivity during emotion regulation in individuals with higher BMI.

## Key findings

- Higher BMI participants showed reduced inhibitory control from the orbitofrontal and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex to the amygdala.
- Lower BMI participants exhibited increased excitatory modulation from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to the amygdala.
- Emotion regulation difficulties were linked to altered fronto-amygdalar connectivity in higher weight individuals.

## Abstract

The regulation of negative emotions entails the modulation of subcortical regions, such as the amygdala, by prefrontal regions. There is preliminary evidence suggesting that individuals at higher weight may present with hypoactivity in prefrontal regulatory systems during emotional regulation, although the directionality of these pathways has not been tested. In this study, we compared fronto‐amygdalar effective connectivity during cognitive reappraisal as a function of BMI in 48 adult women with obesity and 54 control participants.

Dynamic causal modeling and parametric empirical Bayes were used to map effective connectivity between the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala.

Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale scores were higher in the obesity group compared with control participants (p < 0.001). A top‐down cortical model best explained our functional magnetic resonance imaging data (posterior probability = 86%). Participants at higher BMI were less effective at inhibiting activity in the amygdala via the orbitofrontal cortex and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex during reappraisal compared with those at lower BMI. In contrast, increased excitatory modulation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex‐to‐amygdalar connectivity was found in participants at lower BMI.

These findings support a framework involving alterations in fronto‐amygdalar connectivity contributing to difficulties in regulating negative affect in individuals at higher weight.