Food craving is a health issue for a considerable proportion of the general population. Medications have been introduced to alleviate the craving or reduce the appetite via a neuropharmacological approach. However, the underlying cerebral processing of the medications was largely unknown. This study aimed to meta-analyze existing neuroimaging findings. PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched to identify relevant publications. Original studies that reported brain imaging findings using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were initially included. The reported coordinates of brain activation available from the studies were extracted and metaanalyzed with the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) approach via the software GingerALE. The overall analysis pooling data from 24 studies showed that the right claustrum and insula were the targeted sites of altered cerebral processing of food cues by the medications. Subgroup analysis pooling data from 11 studies showed that these sites had reduced activity levels under medications compared to placebo. The location of this significant cluster partially overlapped with that attributable to affective value processing of food cues in a prior meta-analysis. No brain regions were found to have increased activity levels by medications. These neural correlates may help explain the physiological effect of food consumption by anti-appetite and anti-obesity medications.

对食物的渴望是相当一部分普通人群的健康问题。已经引入药物以通过神经药理学方法减轻渴望或降低食欲。然而，药物的潜在大脑处理在很大程度上是未知的。本研究旨在荟萃分析现有的神经影像学发现。搜索了 PubMed、Web of Science 和 Scopus 以确定相关出版物。最初包括使用功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 报告脑成像结果的原始研究。通过软件 GingerALE 使用激活似然估计 (ALE) 方法提取和元分析研究中可用的报告的大脑激活坐标。来自 24 项研究的总体分析汇总数据表明，右侧锁状核和岛叶是药物改变大脑对食物线索的加工的目标部位。来自 11 项研究的亚组分析汇总数据表明，与安慰剂相比，这些部位在药物治疗下的活动水平降低。在先前的荟萃分析中，这一重要集群的位置与归因于食物线索的情感价值处理的位置部分重叠。没有发现大脑区域通过药物增加了活动水平。这些神经相关性可能有助于解释抗食欲和抗肥胖药物对食物消耗的生理影响。来自 11 项研究的亚组分析汇总数据表明，与安慰剂相比，这些部位在药物治疗下的活动水平降低。在先前的荟萃分析中，这一重要集群的位置与归因于食物线索的情感价值处理的位置部分重叠。没有发现大脑区域通过药物增加了活动水平。这些神经相关性可能有助于解释抗食欲和抗肥胖药物对食物消耗的生理影响。来自 11 项研究的亚组分析汇总数据表明，与安慰剂相比，这些部位在药物治疗下的活动水平降低。在先前的荟萃分析中，这一重要集群的位置与归因于食物线索的情感价值处理的位置部分重叠。没有发现大脑区域通过药物增加了活动水平。这些神经相关性可能有助于解释抗食欲和抗肥胖药物对食物消耗的生理影响。