Childhood obesity is associated with negative physiological and cognitive health outcomes. The hippocampus is a diverse subcortical structure involved in learned feeding behaviors and energy regulation, and research has shown that the hippocampus is vulnerable to the effects of excess adiposity. Previous studies have demonstrated reduced hippocampal volume in overweight and obese children; however, it is unclear if certain subregions are selectively affected. The purpose of this study was to determine how excess body weight influences regional hippocampal surface morphology and memory performance in a large cross‐sectional cohort of 588 children and adolescents between 8.33 and 19.92 years of age using body mass index expressed as a percentage of the 95th percentile cutoff (%BMIp95). We demonstrate %BMIp95 is associated with reduced radial thickness in the superior anterior region of the left hippocampus, and this relationship is predominantly driven by children younger than 14 years. We also found %BMIp95 was associated with worse performance on a spatial episodic memory task and this relationship was partially mediated by the radial thickness of the significant shape cluster. These results demonstrate the differential influence of excess body weight on regional hippocampal structure and hippocampal‐dependent behavior in children and adolescents.

中文翻译：

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体重指数对儿童晚期和青春期海马形态和记忆表现的影响


儿童肥胖与负面的生理和认知健康结果相关。海马体是一种多样化的皮层下结构，涉及习得的进食行为和能量调节，研究表明海马体很容易受到过度肥胖的影响。先前的研究表明，超重和肥胖儿童的海马体积减少。然而，尚不清楚某些次区域是否有选择地受到影响。本研究的目的是确定超重如何影响 588 名 8.33 至 19.92 岁儿童和青少年的大型横断面队列中的区域海马表面形态和记忆表现，使用体重指数表示为 95 岁的百分比百分位数截止值 (%BMIp95)。我们证明 %BMIp95 与左海马体上前部区域的径向厚度减小有关，这种关系主要是由 14 岁以下的儿童驱动的。我们还发现 %BMIp95 与空间情景记忆任务的较差表现相关，并且这种关系部分是由重要形状簇的径向厚度介导的。这些结果证明了超重对儿童和青少年的区域海马结构和海马依赖行为的不同影响。