Hormonal
Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) surgery selectively reduces neural activation in the mesolimbic reward pathway and desire to eat in response to high-calorie food cues, independent of restrictive or malabsorptive mechanisms.
Bariatric surgery changes how your brain processes the reward of high-calorie foods, reducing the desire to eat them. This isn't just willpower or stomach size; it's a biological shift in reward signaling. This insight suggests that future non-surgical treatments could target these same neural pathways to help manage cravings.
Findings support the contention that RYGB surgery leads to substantial changes in neural responses to food cues encountered in the environment, provide a potential mechanism for the selective reduction in preferences for high-calorie foods, and suggest partial neural mediation of changes in caloric intake seen after RYGB surgery.
Why this rating
Small sample size (n=10), within-subjects design, short-term follow-up (1 month), but robust fMRI methodology.
Source
Selective Reduction in Neural Responses to High Calorie Foods Following Gastric Bypass Surgery
Christopher N. Ochner et al. · Annals of Surgery · 2010
DOI 10.1097/sla.0b013e318203a289
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