Negative effects of obesity on memory and associated medial temporal circuitry have been noted in animal models, but the status in humans, particularly children, is not well established. Our study is the first to examine neural correlates of successful memory encoding of visual scenes and their associated context in adolescents with severe obesity (age 14–18 years, 43% male). Despite similar subsequent memory as adolescents without obesity (BMI for age and sex <95th percentile), those with severe obesity (BMI for age and sex 120% above the 95th percentile) showed reduced hippocampal, parahippocampal, frontal, and parietal engagement during encoding of remembered visual scenes and greater lateral temporal engagement during encoding of their associated context. Standardized testing revealed a trend level group difference in memory performance, with a larger magnitude of obesity-related difference in recollection-related memory that was mediated by individual differences in lateral temporal activation during contextual encoding. The observed widespread functional alterations are concerning in light of the importance of mnemonic processing for academic achievement and feeding behavior and underscore the need for prevention and intervention initiatives for pediatric obesity.

肥胖已对动物模型中的记忆和相关的颞内侧电路产生了负面影响，但人类，特别是儿童的状况尚不明确。我们的研究是第一个检验严重肥胖青少年（14-18岁，男性43％）中视觉场景及其相关情境成功记忆编码的神经相关性。尽管随后的记忆与未肥胖的青少年相似（年龄和性别的BMI <95％），但严重肥胖的青少年（年龄和性别的BMI高于95％的120％）显示，在编码过程中海马，海马旁，额叶和顶叶的活动减少记住视觉场景，并在关联上下文的编码过程中增加横向的横向参与度。标准化测试揭示了内存性能的趋势级别组差异，在回忆相关记忆中，与肥胖相关的差异幅度更大，这是由上下文编码过程中横向时间激活的个体差异所介导的。鉴于助记符处理对学业成绩和进食行为的重要性，因此观察到的广泛功能改变令人担忧，并强调了预防和干预小儿肥胖症的必要性。