Neurometabolic and Neuroinflammatory Consequences of Obesity: Insights into Brain Vulnerability and Imaging-Based Biomarkers

TL;DR

Obesity affects the brain through metabolic and inflammatory changes, and neuroimaging helps detect early signs of brain vulnerability.

Contribution

This review highlights how neuroimaging biomarkers can improve understanding and management of obesity-related brain dysfunction.

Findings

Obesity causes region-specific brain changes linked to cognitive and metabolic dysregulation.

Neuroimaging techniques reveal early neurometabolic and structural alterations in obesity.

Combining imaging with metabolic profiling may enhance early risk detection and treatment strategies.

Abstract

Obesity is a systemic metabolic disorder characterized by chronic low-grade inflammation and insulin resistance, with growing evidence indicating that the brain represents a primary and particularly vulnerable target organ. Beyond peripheral metabolic consequences, obesity induces region-specific structural, functional, and biochemical alterations within the central nervous system, contributing to cognitive impairment, dysregulated energy homeostasis, and increased susceptibility to neurodegenerative diseases. This narrative review examines key neurometabolic and neuroinflammatory mechanisms underlying obesity-related brain vulnerability, including downstream neuroinflammation, impaired insulin signaling, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, blood–brain barrier disruption, and impaired brain clearance mechanisms. These processes preferentially affect frontal and limbic networks involved in executive control, reward processing, salience detection, and appetite regulation. Advanced neuroimaging has substantially refined our understanding of these mechanisms. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy provides unique in vivo insight into early neurometabolic alterations that may precede irreversible structural damage and is complemented by diffusion imaging, volumetric MRI, functional MRI, cerebral perfusion imaging, and positron emission tomography. Together, these complementary modalities reveal microstructural, network-level, structural, hemodynamic, and molecular alterations associated with obesity-related brain vulnerability and support the concept that such brain dysfunction is dynamic and potentially modifiable. Integrating neurometabolic and multimodal neuroimaging biomarkers with metabolic and clinical profiling may improve early risk stratification and guide preventive and therapeutic strategies aimed at preserving long-term brain health in obesity.

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