Morphological features of the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in late childhood and early adolescence may provide important clues as to the developmental etiology of clinical conditions such as obesity. Body composition measurements and structural brain imaging were performed on 11 226 youth at baseline (age 9 or 10 years) and follow-up (age 11 or 12 years). Baseline morphological features of the lateral PFC were examined as predictors of body composition. Findings revealed reliable associations between middle frontal gyrus volume, thickness and surface area and multiple indices of body composition. These findings were consistent across both time points and remained significant after covariate adjustment. Cortical thicknesses of the inferior frontal gyrus and lateral orbitofrontal cortex were also reliable predictors. Morphology effects on body composition were mediated by performance on a non-verbal reasoning task. Modest but reliable moderation effects were observed with respect to environmental self-regulatory demand after controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, income and methodological variables. Overall findings suggest that PFC morphology is a reliable predictor of body composition in early adolescence, as mediated through select cognitive functions and partially moderated by environmental characteristics.

中文翻译：

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前额皮质的形态预测青春期早期的身体成分：ABCD 研究中的认知调节因子和环境调节因子


儿童晚期和青春期早期外侧前额皮质（PFC）的形态特征可能为肥胖等临床病症的发育病因学提供重要线索。对 11 226 名青少年进行了基线（9 岁或 10 岁）和随访（11 岁或 12 岁）的身体成分测量和结构性脑成像。外侧 PFC 的基线形态特征被检查为身体成分的预测因子。研究结果揭示了额中回体积、厚度和表面积与多种身体成分指标之间的可靠关联。这些发现在两个时间点上都是一致的，并且在协变量调整后仍然显着。额下回和眶额皮质外侧的皮质厚度也是可靠的预测因子。形态对身体成分的影响是由非语言推理任务的表现介导的。在控制性别、种族/民族、收入和方法论变量后，在环境自我监管需求方面观察到适度但可靠的调节效应。总体研究结果表明，PFC 形态是青春期早期身体成分的可靠预测因素，它通过选择的认知功能介导，并部分受到环境特征的调节。